PR4705 
.F6E7 

1833a 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



DD0D31t,flflE7 












^t;^^ 











'Cp9^ 






^'. '^'t.c'i -\ 



"oV^ 



f^ 



♦^ .^M;^'o \./ :MM'' %/ 












^4^9^ 


















; .'^^"^. 







"-^-0^ » 



<>b>* . 



J?-*. 






•.--^o 







■^o 



I 






ESSAYS 



SERIES OF LETTERS, 

©n tje follotofng Subjects : 
ln's writing memoirs of I 

ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

ON THE APPLICATION OF THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 

ON SOME OF THE CAUSES 

BY WHICH EVANGELICAL RELIGION HAS BEEN 

RENDERED LESS ACCEPTABLE TO PERSONS 

OF CULTIVATED TASTE. 



BY JOHN FOSTER, 

AUTHOR OF ' GLORY OF THE AGE,' &C. 



THEOLOGICAL SCHOC i 

Fifth American from the Eighth London Edition, with Additions and 
Improvements by the Author. 



BOSTON: 

PUBLISHED BY JAMES LORING. 

1833. 






6^ 



li^w M, }<^^^ 



AUTHOR'S 

PREFACE. 



Perhaps it will be thought that pieces written so 
much in the manner of set compositions as the follow- 
ing, should not have been denominated Letters ; it 
may, therefore, be proper to say, that they are so called 
because they were actually addressed to a friend. 
They were written, however, with the intention to 
print them, if, when they were finished, the writer 
could persuade himself that they deserved it ; and the 
character of authors is too well known for any one to 
be surprised that he could persuade himself of this. 

When he began these letters, his intention was to 
confine himself within such limits, that essays on 
twelve or fifteen subjects might have been comprised 
in a volume. But he soon found that an interesting 
subject could not be so fully unfolded as he wished, in 
such a narrow space. It appeared to him that many 
things which would be excluded, as much belonged to 
the purpose of the essay as those which would be in- 
troduced. 



iv author's preface. 

It will not seem a very natural manner of commenc- 
ing a course of letters to a friend to enter formally on 
a subject, in the first sentence. In excuse for this 
abruptness it may be mentioned, that an introductory 
letter went before that which appears first in the series ; 
but as it was written in the presumption that a consid- 
erable variety of subjects would be treated in the com- 
pass of a moderate number of letters, it is omitted, as 
being less adapted to precede wl^t is executed in a 
manner so different from the design. 

When writing which has occupied a considerable 
length, and has been interrupted by considerable inter- 
vals, of time, which is also on very different subjects, 
and was, perhaps, meditated under the influence of 
different circumstances, is at last all read over in one 
short space, this immediate succession and close com- 
parison make the writer sensible of some things of 
which he was not aware in the slow separate stages of 
his progress. On thus bringing the following essays 
under one review, the writer perceives some reason to 
apprehend that the spirit of the third may appear so 
different from that of the second as to give an impres- 
sion of something like inconsistency. The second may 
seem to represent that a man may effect almost every 
thing ; the third, that he can effect scarcely any thing. 
The writer, however, persuades himself that the one 
does not assert the efficacy of human resolution and 
effort under the same conditions under which the other 
asserts their inefficacy ; and that, therefore, there is 
no real contrariety between the principles of the two 
essays. From the evidence of history and familiar 
experience we know that under certain conditions, and 
within certain limits, (very contracted ones indeed,) an 



author's preface. V- 

enlightened and resolute human spirit has great power, 
this greatness being relative, of course, to the measures 
of things Avithin a small sphere ; while it is equally 
obvious that this enlightened and resolute spirit, disre- 
garding these conditions, and attempting to extend its 
agency over a much wider sphere, shall find its power 
baffled and annihilated, till it draws back again within 
the contracted boundary. Now the great power of the 
human mind within the narrow limit may be distinctly 
illustrated at one time, and its impotence beyond that 
limit, at another ; but the assemblage of sentiments 
and exemplifications most adapted to illustrate, and 
without any very material exaggeration, that power 
alone, will form apparently so strong a contrast with 
the assemblage of thoughts and facts proper for il- 
lustrating that imbecility alone, that on a superfi- 
cial view the tvv^o representations may appear contra- 
dictory. And the author appeals to the experience of 
such thinking men as are accustomed to commit their 
thoughts to writing, whether they have not sometimes, 
on comparing the pages in which they had endeavoured 
to place one truth in the strongest light, with those in 
which they have endeavoured a strong but yet not ex- 
travagant exhibition of another, felt a momentary diffi- 
culty to reconcile them, even while satisfied of the 
substantial justness of both. The whole doctrine on 
any extensive moral subject necessarily includes two 
views which may be considered as its extremes ; and 
if these are strongly stated quite apart from their rela- 
tions to each other, both the representations may be 
perfectly true, and yet may require, in order to the 
reader's perceiving their consistency, a recollection of 
many intermediate ideas. 



VI AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 

In the fourth essay, it was not intended to take a 
comprehensive or systematic view of the causes con- 
tributing to prevent the candid attention and the cordial 
admission due to evangelical religion, but simply to 
select a very few which had particularly attracted the 
author's observation. One or two more would have 
been specified and slightly illustrated, if that the essay 
had not been already too long. 



CONTENTS. 



ESSAY I. 
On a Man's writing Memoirs of Himself, 9 

ESSAY II. 
On Decision of Character, 69 

ESSAY III. 

On the Application of the Epithet Ro- 
mantic, 123 

ESSAY IV. 

On some of the Causes by which Evan- 
gelical Religion has been rendered 
unacceptable to persons of cultivat- 
ED TaSTE, 177 



ESSAY I. 

OJ\r A MJiJV'S WRITING MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF, 



LETTER I. 

Affectionate Interest with which we revert to our past Life. ...It deserves a brief 
Record for our own use. ...Very few thing-s to be noted of the Multitude that 
have occurred..., Direction and Use of such a Review as would be required for 
writing a Memoir.. ..Importance of our past Life considered as the Beginning of 
an endless Duration of Existence. ...General Deficiency of Self-Obsei-vation..., 
Oblivion of the greatest Number of our past Feelings. ...Occasional Glhnpses of 
vivid Recollection. ...Associations with Things and Places. ...The different and 
unknown Associations of different Persons with the same Places. 

MT DEAR FRIEND, 

Every one knows with what interest it is natural 
to retrace the course of our own lives. The past 
states and periods of a man's being are retained in 
a connexion with the present by that principle of 
self-love, which is unwilling to relinquish its hold 
on what has once been his. Though he cannot but 
be sensible of how little consequence his life can 
have been in the creation, compared with many other 
trains of events, yet he has felt it more important to 
himself than all other trains together ; and you will 
very rarely find him tired of narrating again the little 
history, or at least the favourite parts of the little 
history, of himself 

To turn this partiality to some account, I recollect 
having proposed to two or three of my friends that 
they should write, each principally however for his 
own use, memoirs of their own lives, endeavouring 



10 ON A man's writing 

not so much to enumerate the mere facts and events 
of life, as to discriminate the successive states of the 
mind, and the progress of character. It is in this 
progress that we acknowledge the chief importance 
of life to consist : but even as supplying a constant 
series of interests to the passions, and separately 
from every consideration of moral and intellectual 
discipline, we have all accounted our life an inesti- 
mable possession, which it deserved incessant cares 
and labours to retain, and Avhich continues in most 
cases to be still held with anxious attachment. What 
has been the object of so much partiality, and has 
been delighted and pained by so many emotions, 
might claim, even if the highest interest were out of 
the question, that a short memorial should be re- 
tained by him who has possessed it, has seen it all 
to this moment depart, and can never recal it. 

To write memoirs of many years, as twenty, thirty, 
or forty, seems, at the first glance, a ponderous task. 
To reap the products of so many acres of earth in- 
deed might, to one person, be an undertaking of 
mighty toil. But the materials of any value that all 
past life can supply to a recording pen, would be 
reduced by a discerning selection to a very small 
and modest amount. Would as much as one page 
of moderate size be deemed by any man's self-im- 
portance to be due, on an average, to each of the 
days that he has lived ? No man would judge more 
than one in ten thousand of all his thoughts, sayings, 
and actions, worthy to be mentioned, if memory 
were capable of recalling them. Necessarily a very 
large portion of what has occupied the successive 
years of life was of a kind to be utterly useless for a 
history of it ; because it was merely for the accom- 
modation of the time. Perhaps in the space of forty 
years, millions of sentences are proper to be uttered, 
and many thousands of affairs requisite to be trans- 
acted, or of journeys to be performed, which it would 
be ridiculous to record. They are a kind of material 
for the common expenditure and waste of the day. 
And yet it is often by a detail of this subordinate 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 11 

economy of life, that the works of fiction, the narra- 
tives of age, the journals of travellers, and even grave 
biographical accounts, are made so unreasonably- 
long. As well might a chronicle of the coats that a 
man has worn, with the colour and date of each, be 
called his life, for any important uses of relating its 
history. As well might a man, of whom I inquire 
the dimensions, the internal divisions, and the use, 
of some remarkable building, begin to tell me how 
much wood was employed in the scaffolding-, where 
the mortar was prepared, or how often it rained 
while the work was proceeding. 

But, in a deliberate review of all that we can re- 
member of. past life, it will be possible to select a 
certain proportion which may with the most propriety 
be deemed the history of the man. What I am rec- 
ommending is, to follow the order of time, and reduce 
your recollections, from the earliest period to the 
present, into as simple a statement and explanation 
as you can, of your feelings, opinions, and habits, 
and of the principal circumstances through each 
stage that have influenced them, till they have be- 
come at last what they now are. 

Whatever tendencies nature may justly be deemed 
to have imparted in the first instance, you would 
probably find the greater part of the moral constitu- 
tion of your being composed of the contributions of 
many years and events, consolidated by degrees 
into what we call character ; and by investigating 
the progress of the accumulation, you would be as- 
sisted to judge more clearly how far the materials 
are valuable,"the mixture congruous, and the whole 
conformation worthy to remain unaltered. With 
respect to any friend that greatly interests us, we 
have always a curiosity to obtain an accurate account 
of the past train of his life and feelings ; and though 
there may be several reasons for such a wish, it 
partly springs from a consciousness how much this 
retrospective knowledge would assist to decide or 
confirm our estimate of that friend ; but our estimate 
of ourselves is of more serious consequence. 



12 ON A man's whiting 

The elapsed periods of life acquire importance 
too from the prospect of its continuance. The 
smallest thing becomes respectable, when regarded 
as the commencement of what has advanced, or is 
advancing, into magnificence. The first rude set- 
tlement of Romulus would have been an insignificant 
circumstance, and might justly have sunk into obliv- 
ion, if Rome had not at length commanded the world. 
The little rill, near the source of one of the great 
American rivers, is an interesting object to the trav- 
eller, who is apprised, as he steps across it, or walks 
a few miles along its bank, that this is the stream 
which runs so far, and which gradually swells into 
so immense a flood. So, while I anticipate the end- 
less progress of life, and wonder through what un- 
known scenes it is to take its course, its past years 
lose that character of vanity which would seem to 
belong to a train of fleeting perishing moments, and 
I see them assuming the dignity of a commencing 
eternity. In them I have begun to be that conscious 
existence which I am to be through infinite duration : 
and I feel a strange emotion of curiosity about this 
little life, in which I am setting out on such a pro- 
gress ; I cannot be content without an accurate 
sketch of the windings thus far of a stream which is 
to bear me on forever. I try to imagine how it will 
be to recollect, at a far distant point of my era, what 
I was when here ; and wish, if it were possible, to 
retain, as I advance, the whole course of my exist- 
ence within the scope of clear reflection ; to fix in 
my mind so strong an idea of what I have been in 
this original period of my time, that I shall possess 
this idea in ages too remote for calculation. 

The review becomes still more important, when I 
learn the influence which this first part of the pro- 
gress will have on the happiness or misery of the 
next. 

One of the greatest difficulties in the way of exe- 
cuting the proposed task will have been caused by 
the extreme deficiency of that self-observation, 
which, to any extent, is no common employment 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 13 

either of youth or any later age. Men realize their 
existence in the surrounding objects that act upon 
them, and form the interests of self, rather than in 
that very self, that interior being that is thus acted 
upon. So that this being itself, with its thoughts 
and feelings, as distinct from the objects of those 
thoughts and feelings, but rarely occupies its own 
deep and patient attention. Men carry their minds 
as they carry their watches, content to be ignorant 
of the mechanism of their movements, and satisfied 
with attending to the little exterior circle of things, 
to which the passions, like indexes, are pointing. It 
is surprising to see how little self-knowledge a per- 
son not watchfully observant of himself may have 
gained, in the whoJe course of an active, or even an 
inquisitive life. He may have lived almost an age, 
and traversed a continent, minutely examining its 
curiosities, and interpreting the half-obliterated char- 
acters on its monuments, unconscious the while of a 
process operating on his own mind, to impress or to 
erase characteristics of much more importance to 
him than all the figured brass or marble that Europe 
contains. After having explored many a cavern or 
dark ruinous avenue, he may have left undetected a 
darker recess in his character. He may have con- 
versed with many people, in different languages, on 
numberless subjects ; but, having neglected those 
conversations with himself by which his whole moral 
being should have been kept continually disclosed 
to his view, he is better qualified perhaps to describe 
the intrigues of a foreign court, or the progress of a 
foreign trade ; to represent the manners of the Ital- 
ians, or the Turks ; to narrate the proceedings of 
the Jesuits, or the adventures of the gypsies ; than 
to write the history of his own mind. 

If we had practised habitual self-observation, we 
could not have failed to make important discoveries. 
There have been thousands of feelings, each of 
which, if strongly seized upon, and made the subject 
of reflection, would have shown us what our charac- 
ter was, and what it was likely to become. There 



14 ON A man's writing 

have been numerous incidents, which operated on 
us as tests, and so fully brought out our prevalent 
quality, that another person, who should have been 
discriminately observing us, would instantly have 
formed a decided estimate. But unfortunately the 
mind is generally too much occupied by the feeling 
or the incident itself, to have the slightest care or 
consciousness that any thing could be learnt, or is 
disclosed. In very early youth it is almost inevitable 
for it to be thus lost to itself even amidst its own 
feelings, and the external objects of attention ; but 
it seems a contemptible thing, and certainly is a 
criminal and dangerous thing, for a man in mature 
life to allow himself this thoughtless escape from 
self-examination. 

We have not only neglected to observe what our 
feelings indicated, but have also in a very great de- 
gree ceased to remember what they were. We 
may justly wonder how our minds could pass away 
successively from so many scenes and moments 
which seemed to us important, each in its time, and 
retain so light an impression, that we have now 
nothing to tell about what once excited our utmost 
emotion. As to my own mind, I perceive that it is 
becoming uncertain of the exact nature of many 
feelings of considerable interest, even of compara- 
tively recent date ; of course, the remembrance of 
what was felt in early life is exceedingly faint. I 
have just been observing several children of eight 
or ten years old, in all the active vivacity which en- 
joys the plenitude of the moment without 'looking 
before or after ;' and while observing, I attempted, 
but without success, to recollect what I was at that 
age. I can indeed remember the principal events 
oif the period, and the actions and projects to which 
my feelings impelled me : but the feelings them- 
selves, in their own pure juvenility,cannot be revived, 
so as to be described and placed in comparison with 
those of maturity. What is become of all those ver- 
nal fancies which had so much power to touch the 
heart 7 ■ What a ijumber of sentiments have lived and 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 15 

revelled in the soul that are now irrevocably gone ! 
They died, like the singing birds of that time, which 
now sing no more. 

The life that we then had, now seems almost as if it 
could not have been our own. When we go back to it 
in thought, and endeavour to recal the interests which 
animate it, they will not come. We are like p man 
returning, after the absence of many years, to visit 
the embowered cottage where he passed the morn- 
ing of his life, and finding only a relic of its ruins. 

But many of the propensities which still continue, 
probably originated then : and our not being able to 
explore them up to those remote sources renders a 
complete investigation of our moral and intellectual 
characters forever impossible. How little, in those 
years, we were aware, when we met with the inci- 
dent, or heard the conversation, or saw the spectacle 
or felt the emotion, which were the first causes of 
some of the chief permanent tendencies of future 
life, how much and how vainly we might, long after- 
ward, wish to ascertain the origin ofthose tenden- 
cies. But if we cannot absolutely reach their origin, 
it will however be interesting to trace them back 
through all the circumstances which have increased 
their strength. 

In some occasional states of the mind, we can 
look back much more clearly, and to a much greater 
distance, than at other times. I would advise to 
seize those short intervals of illumination which 
sometimes occur without our knowing the cause, 
and in which the genuine aspect of some remote 
event, or long-forgotten image, is recovered with 
extreme distinctness by vivid spontaneous glimpses 
of thought, such as no effort could have commanded ; 
as the sombre features and minute objects of a dis- 
tant ridge of hills become strikingly visible in the 
strong gleams of light which transiently fall on them. 
An instance of this kind occurred to me but a few 
hours since, while reading what had no perceptible 
connexion with a circumstance of my early youth, 
which probably I have not recollected for many 



16 

years, and which had no unusual interest at the time 
that it happened. That circumstance came suddenly 
to ray mind with a clearness of representation which 
I was not able to retain for the length of an hour, 
and which I could not by the strongest effort at this 
instant renew. I seemed almost to see the walls and 
windows of a particular room, with four or five per- 
sons in it, who were so perfectly restored to my 
imagination, that I could recognise not only the 
features, but even the momentary expressions of 
their countenances, and the tones of their voices. 

According to different states of the mind too, re- 
trospect appears longer or shorter. It may happen 
that some memorable circumstance of very early life 
shall be so powerfully recalled, as to contract the 
"wide intervening space, by banishing from the view, 
a little while, all the series of intermediate remem- 
brances ; but when this one object of memory retires 
again to its remoteness and indifference, and all the 
others resume their proper places and distances, the 
retrospect appears long. 

Places and things which have an association with 
any of the events or feelings of past life, will greatly 
assist the recollection of them. A man of strong 
associations finds memoirs of himself already written 
on the places where he has conversed with happiness 
or misery. If an old man wished to animate for a 
moment the languid and faded ideas which he re- 
tains of his youth, he might walk with his crutch 
across the green, where he once played with com- 
panions who are now probably laid to repose in 
another spot not far off. An aged saint may meet 
again some of the affecting ideas of his early piety, 
in the place where he first thought it happy to pray. 
A walk in a meadow, the sight of a bank of flowers, 
perhaps even of some one flower, a landscape with 
the tints of autumn, the descent into a valley, the 
brow of a mountain, the house where a friend has 
been met, or has residedj or has died, have often 
produced a much more lively recollection of our past 
feelings, and of the objects and events which caused 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 17 

them, than the most perfect description could have 
done ; and we have lingered a considerable time for 
the pensive luxury of thus resuming the departed 
state. 

But there are many to whom local associations 
present images which they fervently wish they could 
forget ; images which haunt the places where crimes 
had been perpetrated, and which seem to approach 
and glare on the criminal as he hastily passes by, 
especially if in the evening or the night. No local 
associations are so impressive as those of guilt. It 
may here be observed, that as each one has his own 
separate remembrances, giving to some places an 
aspect and a significance which he alone can per- 
ceive, there must be an unknown number of pleasing, 
or mournful, or dreadful associations, spread over 
the scenes inhabited or visited by men. We pass 
without any awakened consciousness by the bridge, 
or the wood, or the house, where there is something 
to excite the most painful or frightful ideas in the 
next man that shall come that way, or possibly the 
companion that Avalks along with us. How much 
there is in a thousand spots of the earth, that is in- 
visible and silent to all but the conscious individual ! 

I hear a voice j'ou cannot hear j 
I see a hand you cannot see. 



LETTER II. 

All past Life an Education. ..Discipline and influence from.... direct Instruction..,. 
Companionship... .Books... .Scenes of Nature. ...and the State of Society. 

We may regard our past life as a continued though 
irregular course of education ; and the discipline 
has consisted of instruction, companionship, reading, 



18 ON A man's writing 

and the diversified influences of the world. The 
young mind eagerly came forward to meet the oper- 
ation of some or all of these modes of discipline, 
though without the possibility of a thought concern- 
ing the important process under which it was begin- 
ning to pass. In some certain degree we have been 
influenced by each of these parts of the great system 
of education ; it will be worth while to inquire how 
far, and in what manner. 

Few persons can look back to the early period 
when they were most directly the subjects of in- 
struction, without a regret for themselves, (which 
may be extended to the human race,) that the result 
of instruction, excepting that which leads to evil, 
bears so small a proportion to its compass and repe- 
tition. Yet some good consequences will follow the 
diligent inculcation of truth and precept on the 
youthful mind; and our consciousness of possessing 
certain advantages derived from it will be a partial 
consolation in the review that will comprise so many 
proofs of its comparative inefficacy. You can recol- 
lect, perhaps, the instructions to which you feel your- 
self permanently the most indebted, and some of those 
which produced the greatest effect at the time, those 
which surprised, delighted, or mortified you. You 
can remember the facility or difficulty of under- 
standing, the facility or difficulty of believing, and 
the practical inferences which you drew from prin- 
ciples, on the strength of your own reason, and 
sometimes in variance with those made by your 
instructors. You can remember what views of truth 
and duty were most frequently and cogently pre- 
sented, what passions were appealed to, what argu- 
ments were employed, and which had the greatest 
influence. Perhaps your present idea of the most 
convincing and persuasive mode of instruction, may 
be derived from your early experience of the manner 
of those persons with whose opinions you felt it the 
most easy and delightful to harmonize, who gave 
you the most agreeable consciousness of your fac- 
ulties expanding \q tjie light, like moi-ning flowers, 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 19 

and who, assuming the least of dictation, exerted 
the greatest degree of power. You can recollect 
the submissiveness with which your mind yielded 
to instructions as from an oracle, or the hardihood 
with which you dared to examine and oppose them. 
You can remember how far they became, as to your 
own conduct, an internal authority of reason and 
conscience, when you were not under the inspection 
of those who inculcated them ; and what classes of 
persons or things around you they induced you to 
dislike or approve. And you can perhaps imperfectly 
trace the manner and the particulars in which they 
sometimes aided, or sometimes counteracted, those 
other influences which have a far stronger efficacy 
on the character than instruction can boast. 

Most persons, I presume, can recollect some few 
sentences or conversations which made so deep an 
impression, perhaps in some instances they can 
scarcely tell why, that they have been thousands of 
times recalled, while all the rest have been forgot- 
ten ; or they can advert to some striking incident, 
coming in aid of instruction, or being of itself a 
forcible instruction, which they seem even now to 
see as clearly as when it happened, and of which 
they will retain a perfect idea to the end of life. 
The most remarkable circumstances of this kind 
deserve to be recorded in the supposed memoirs. 
In some instances, to recollect the instructions of a 
former period, will be to recollect too the excellence, 
the affection, and the death, of the persons who gave 
them. Amidst the sadness of such a remembrance, 
it will be a consolation that they are not entirely 
lost to us. Wise monitions, when they return on 
us with this melancholy charm, have more pathetic 
cog-ency than when they were first uttered by the 
voice of a living friend. It will be an interesting 
occupation of the pensive hour, to recount the ad- 
vantages which we have received from the beings 
who have left the world, and to reinforce our virtues 
from the dust of those who first taught them. 

In Qur review, we ghe^ll fi^d that the gprnpanions 



20 ON A man's writing 

of our childhood, and of each succeeding period, 
have had a great influence on our characters. A 
creature so conformable as man, and at the same 
time so capable of being moulded into partial dis- 
similarity by social antipathies, cannot have con- 
versed with his fellow beings thousands of hours, 
walked with them thousands of miles, undertaken 
with them numberless enterprises, smaller and great- 
er, and had every passion, by turns, awakened in 
their company, without being immensely affected 
by all this association. A large share, indeed, of 
the social interest may have been of so common a 
kind, and with persons of so common an order, that 
the effect on the character has been too little peculiar 
to be strikingly perceptible during the progress. 
We were not sensible of it, till we came to some of 
those circumstances and changes in life, which make 
us aware of the state of our minds by the manner in 
which new objects are acceptable or repulsive to 
them. On removing into a new circle of society, 
for instance, we could perceive, by the number of 
things in which we found ourselves uncongenial 
with ttie new acquaintance, the modification which 
our sentiments had received in the preceding social 
intercourse. But in some instances we have been 
sensible, in a very short time, of a powerful force 
operating on our opinions, tastes and habits, and 
throwing them into a new order. This effect is 
inevitable, if a young susceptible mind happens to 
become familiarly acquainted with a person in whom 
a strongly individual cast of character is sustained 
and dignified by uncommon mental resources ; and 
it may be found that, generally, the greatest measure 
of effect has been produced by the influence of a 
very small number of persons ; often of one only, 
whose extended and interesting mind had more pow- 
er to surround and assimilate a'young, ingenuous be- 
ing, than the collective influence of a multitude of 
the persons, whose characters were moulded in the 
manufactory of custom, and sent forth like images of 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 21 

clay of kindred shape and varnish from a pottery. I 
am supposing, all along, that the person who writes 
memoirs of himself, is conscious of something more 
peculiar than a mere dull resemblance of that ordina- 
ry form of character for Avhich it would seem hardly 
worth while to have been a man. As to the crowd of 
those who are faithfully stamped, like bank notes, 
with the same marks, with the difference only of be- 
ing worth more guineas or fewer, they are mere par- 
ticles of a class, mere pieces and bits of the great 
vulgar or the small ; they need not write their history, 
it may be found in the newspaper chronicle, or the 
gossip's or the sexton's narrative. 

It is obvious, in what I have suggested respecting 
the research through past life, that all the persons 
who are recalled to the mind, as having had an in- 
fluence on us, must stand before it in judgment. It 
is impossible to examine our moral and intellectual 
growth without forming an estimate, as we proceed, 
of those Avho retarded, advanced, or perverted it. 
Our dearest relatives and friends cannot be exempt- 
ed. There will be in some instances the necessity 
of blaming where we wish to give entire praise ; 
though perhaps some worthy motives and generous 
feelings may, at the same time, be discovered in the 
conduct where they had hardly been perceived or 
allowed before. But, at any rate, it is important 
that in no instance the judgment be duped into de- 
lusive estimates, amidst the examination, and so as 
to deprave the principles of the examination, by 
which we mean to bring ourselves to rigorous justice. 
For if any indulgent partiality, or mistaken idea of 
that duty which requires a kind and candid feeling 
to accompany the clearest discernment of defects, 
may be permitted to beguile our judgment out of 
the decisions of justice in favour of others, self-love, 
a still more indulgent and partial feeling, will not 
fail to practise the same beguilement in favour of 
ourselves. But indeed it would seem impossible, 
besides being absurd, to apply one set of principles. 



23 ON A man's writing 

to judge of ourselves, and another to judge of those 
with whom we have associated. 

Every person of tolerable education has been 
considerably influenced by the books he has read ; 
and remembers with a kind of gratitude several of 
those that made the earliest and the strongest im- 
pression. It is pleasing at a more advanced period 
to look again into the early favourites ; though the 
mature person may wonder how some of them had 
once power to absorb his passions, make him retire 
into a lonely v/ood in order to read unmolested, 
repel the approaches of sleep, or infect it, when it 
came, with visions. A capita] part of the proposed 
task would be to recollect the books that have been 
read with the greatest interest, the periods when 
they were read, the succession of them, the partiality 
which any of them inspired to a particular mode of 
life, to a study, to a system of opinions, or to a class 
of human characters ; to note the counteraction of 
later ones (where we have been sensible of it) to 
the effect produced by the former ; and then, to en- 
deavour to estimate the whole and ultimate influence. 

Considering the multitude of facts, sentiments, 
and characters, which have been contemplated by a 
person who has read much, the effect, one should 
think, must have been very great. Still, however, 
it is probable, that a very small number of books 
will have the pre-eminence in our mental history. 
Perhaps your memory will promptly recur to six or 
ten that have contributed more to your present hab- 
its of feeling and thought than all the rest together. 
And here it may be observed, that when a few books 
of the same kind have pleased us emphatically, they 
too often form an almost exclusive taste, which is 
carried through all future reading, and is pleased 
only with books of that kind. 

It might be supposed that the scenes of nature, 
an amazing assemblage of phenomena if their effect 
were not lost through familiarity, would have a pow- 
erful influence on all opening minds, and transfuse 
into the internal economy of ideas and sentiment 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 23 

something of a character and a colour correspondent 
to the beauty, vicissitude, and grandeur, which con- 
tinually press on the senses. On minds of genius 
they often have this effect ; and Beattie's Minstrel 
may be as just as it is a captivating description of 
the feelings of such a spirit. But on the greatest 
number tliis influence operates feebly ; you will not 
see the process in children, nor the result in mature 
persons. The charms of nature are objects only of 
sight and hearing, not of sensibility and imagination. 
And even the sight and hearing do not receive im- 
pressions sufficiently distinct or forcible for clear 
recollection ; it is not, therefore, strange that these 
impressions seldom go so much deeper than the 
senses as to awaken pensiveness or enthusiasm, and 
fill the mind with an interior permanent scenery of 
beautiful images at its own command. This defect 
of fancy and sensibility is unfortunate amidst a crea- 
tion infinitely rich with ^rand and beautiful objects, 
which, imparting something more than images to a 
mind adapted and habituated to converse with na- 
ture, inspire an exquisite sentiment that seems like 
the emanation of a spirit residing in them. It is 
unfortunate, I have thought within these few minutes, 
while looking out on one of the most enchanting 
nights of the most interesting season of the year, 
and hearing the voices of a company of persons, to 
whom I can perceive that this soft and solemn shade 
over the earth, the calm sky, the beautiful stripes of 
cloud, the stars, and the waning moon just risen, are 
things not in the least more interesting than the 
walls, ceiling, and candle-light of a room. I feel no 
vanity in this instance ; for probably a thousand 
aspects of night, not less striking than this, have 
appeared before my eyes and departed, not only 
without awaking emotion, but almost without at- 
tracting notice. 

If minds in general are not made to be strongly 
affected by the phenomena of the earth and heavens, 
they are however all subject to be powerfully influ- 
enced by the appearances and character of the human 



24 ON A man's writing 

world. I suppose a child in Switzerland, growing 
up to a man, would have acquired incomparably more 
of the cast of his mind from the events, manners, 
and actions of the next village, though its inhabitants 
were but his occasional companions, than from all 
the mountain scenes, the cataracts, and every cir- 
cumstance of beauty or sublimity in nature around 
him. We are all true to our species, and very soon 
feel its importance to us, (though benevolence be 
not the basis of the interest,) far beyond the impor- 
tance of any thing that we see besides. You may 
have observed how instantly even children will turn 
their attention away from any of the more ample 
aspects of nature, however rare or striking, if human 
objects present themselves to view in any active 
manner. This 'leaning to our kind' brings each 
individual not only under the influence attending 
direct companionship with a few, but under the op- 
eration of numberless influences, from all the moral 
diversities of which he is a spectator in the living 
world, — a complicated, though often insensible tyr- 
anny, of which every fashion, folly, and vice, may 
exercise its part. 

Some persons would be able, in the review of life, 
to recollect very strong and influential impressions 
made, in almost the first years of it, by some of the 
facts which they witnessed in surrounding society. 
But whether the operation on us of the plastic power 
of the community began with impressions of extra- 
ordinary force or not, it has been prolonged through 
the whole course of our acquaintance with mankind. 
It is no little effect for the living world to have had 
on us, that very many of our present opinions are 
owing to what we have seen and experienced in it. 
That thinking which has involuntarily been kept in 
exercise upon it, however remiss and desultory,^ 
could not fail to result in a number of settled notions, 
which may be said to be shaped upon its facts and 
practices. We could not be in sight of it, and in 
intercourse with it, without the formation of opinions 
adjusted to what we found in it ; and thus far it has 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 25 

been the creator of our mental economy. But its 
operation has not stopped here. It will not confine 
itself to occupying- the und-erstanding, and yield to 
be a mere subject for judgments to be formed upon ; 
but all the while that its judge is directing upon it 
the exercise of his opinion, it is re-actively throwing 
on him various moral influences and infections. 



LETTER III. 

Very powerful Impressions sometimes from particular Pacts, tending to form dfs- 
criniiiialed Characters. ...Yet very few stroiif^ly cliscrimiiiatert and imlividual 
Characters fouad....Most Persons belong- to general classes of Character... .Im- 
mense iVnmber and Diversity of Impressions, of indefinitely various tendency, 
wiiich the moral Being has undergone in the course of Life.. ..Might be expected 
tliat such a Confusion of Influences would not permit the Formation of any settled 
Character.. ..That such a Character is, nevertheless, acquired and maintained, is 
owing to some one leadinsr Determination, given by whatever means, to the 
Mind, generally in early" Life. ...Common self-deceptive Belief that we have 
maintained moral Rectitude and the Kxercise of sound Reason under the Impres- 
sions that have been forming our Characters. 

A PERSON, capable of being deeply interested, 
and who is accustomed to reflect on his feelings, will 
have observed in himself this subjection to the influ- 
ences of what has been presented to him in society ; 
and will acknowledge that in one or a few instan- 
ces they have seemed, at the time, of sufficient force 
to go far toward new-moulding the whole habit of 
the mind. Recollect your own experience. After 
witnessing some remarkable transaction, or some 
new and strange department of life and manners, or 
some striking disclosure of character, or after listen- 
ing to some extraordinary conversation, or impres- 
sive recital of facts, you have been conscious that 
what you have heard or seen has given your mind 
some one strong determination, of a nature resulting 
from the quality of that which has made the impres- 
sion. Though the dispositions already existing must 



26 ON A man's writing 

no doubt have been prepared to receive the opera- 
tion of this new cause in one certain manner, (since 
every one would not have been affected in the same 
manner,) yet the feelings have been thrown into an 
order so different, that you seemed to have acquired 
a new moral being. The difference has been not 
merely in their temporary energy, but also in their 
direction. In the state thus suddenly formed, some 
of the dispositions of which you had been conscious 
before, seemed to be lost, while others, that previ- 
ously had little strength, were grown into an impe- 
rious prevalence ; or even a new one appeared to 
have been originated.* While this state continues, 
a man is another character ; and if the moral ten- 
dency thus excited or created could be prolonged 
through the sequel of his life, the difference might 
be such, that it would be by means only of his per- 
son that he would be recognized for the same, while 
an observer who should not know the cause, would 
be perplexed and surprised at the change. Now 
this permanence of the new moral direction might 
be effected, if the impression which causes it were 
so intensely powerful as to haunt him ever after ; 
or if he were subjected to a long succession of imr 
pressions of the same tendenc)^, without any oppo- 
site or strongly different ones intervening to break 
the process. 

You have witnessed perhaps a scene of injustice 
and oppression, and have retired with an indigna- 
tion which has tempted you to imprecate vengeance. 
Now supposing that the hateful image of this scene 
were to be revived in your mind for a Jong time, as 
often as any iniquitous circumstance in society pre- 
sents itself to your notice, and that you had an entire 
persuasion that your feeling was the pure indigna- 
tion of virtue : or, supposing that you were repeat- 
edly to witness similar instances, without emotion 
becoming languid by familiarity with them, the con- 

* So great an effect, however, as this last, is perhaps rarely 
experienced from even the most powerful causes, except in early 
life. 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 27 

sequence might be that you would acquire the spirit 
of Draco or Minos. 

It is easy to imagine the impression of a few- 
atrocious facts on a mind of ardent passions convert- 
ing a humane horror of cruelty into the vindictive 
fanaticism of Montbar the Buccaneer f and I have 
known instances of a similar effect, in a fainter de- 
gree. A person of gentler sensibility, by accident- 
ally witnessing a scene of distress of which none of 
the circumstances caused disgust toward the suffer- 
ers, or indignation against others as the cause" of the 
sorrow, having once tasted the pleasure of soothing 
woes which perhaps death alone can remove, might 
be led to seek other instances of distress, acquire 
both an aptitude and a partiality for the friendly of- 
fice, and become a pensive philanthropist. The 
extreme disgust, excited by some extravagance of 
ostentatious wealth, or some excess of dissipated 
frivolity, and awaked again at every succeeding and 
inferior instance of the same kind, with a much 
stronger aversion than would have been excited in 
these inferior instances, if the disgusted feeling did 
not run into the vestiges of the first indelible impres- 
sion, may produce a cynic or a miser, a recluse or a 
philosopher. Numberless other illustrations might 
be brought to show how much the characters of hu- 
man beings, entering on life, with such unwarned 
carelessness of heart, are at the mercy of the incal- 
culable influences which may strike them from any 
point of the surrounding world. 

It is true that, notwithstanding so many influences 
are acting on men, and some oif them apparently of 
a kind and of a force to produce in their subjects a 
striking peculiarity, comparatively few characters 
determinately marked from all around them are 
found to arise. In looking on a large company of 
persons whose dispositions and pursuits are substan- 
tially alike, we cannot doubt that several of them 
have met with circumstances, of which the natural 
tendency must have been to give them a determina- 
tion of mind extremely dissimilar to the character of 

» See Abbe Eaynal'u History of the Indies. 



28 ON A man's writing 

those whom they now so much resemble. And why 
does the influence of such circumstances fail to pro- 
duce such a result ? Partly, because the influences 
that are of a more peculiar and specific operation are 
overborne and lost in that wide general influence 
which accumulates and conforms each individual to 
the crowd ; and partly, because even were there no 
such general influence to steal away the impressions 
of a more peculiar tendency, few minds are of so 
fixed and faithful a consistence as to retain, in con- 
tinued eflicacy, impressions of a kind which the com- 
mon course of life is not adapted to reinforce, nor 
prevailing example to confirm. The mind of the 
greater proportion of human beings, if attempted to 
be wrought into any boldly specific form, proves like 
a half-fluid substance, in which angles, or circles, or 
any other figures, may be cut, but which recovers, 
while you are looking, its former state, and closes 
them up ; or like a quantity of dust, which may be 
raised into momentary reluctant shapes, but which 
is relapsing even amidst the operation towards its 
undefined mass. 

But if characters marked with strong individual 
peculiarity are somewhat rare, such as bear some 
considerably prominent generic distinction are very 
numerous ; the decidedly avaricious for instance, 
the devoted slaves of fashion, and the eager aspirers 
to power, in however confined a sphere, the little 
Alexanders of a mole-hill, quite as ambitious, in their 
way, as the great Alexander of a world. It is ob- 
servable here, how much more obviously the unwor- 
thy distinctions of human character are presented 
to the thoughts than those of contrary quality. And 
it is a melancholy illustration of the final basis of 
character, that is, human nature itself, that both the 
distinctions which designate a bad class, and those 
which constitute a bad individual peculiarity, are 
attained with far the greaftest frequency and facility. 
While, however, I have the most entire conviction 
of this mighty inclination to evil, which is the grand 
cause of all the diversified forms of evil, and while, 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 29 

at the same time, I cannot divest myself of the vul- 
grar belief of a great native difference between dif- 
ferent men, in the original modification of those 
principles which are to be unfolded by the progress 
of time into intellectual powers and moral disposi- 
tions ; I yet cannot but perceive that the immediate 
causes of the greater portion of the prominent actual 
character of human beings are to be found in those 
moral elements through which they pass. And if 
one might be pardoned for putting in words, so fan- 
ciful an idea as that of its being possible for a man 
to live back again to his infancy, through all the 
scenes of his life, and to give back from his mind 
and character, at each time and circumstance, as he 
re-passed it, exactly that which he took from it, 
when he was there before, it would be most curious 
to see the fragments and exuvicE of the moral man 
lying here and there along the retrograde path, and 
to find Avhat he was in the beginning of this train of 
modifications and acquisitions. Nor can it be doubt- 
ed that any man, though his original tendencies 
(which possibly have been brought under a series of 
events caleulatedtofavour their development) were 
ever so defined, might, by being led through a dif- 
ferent train, opposite to those native tendencies, 
have been now an extremely different man from 
what he is, even the measure of his intellectual cul- 
tivation being the same. 

Here a person even of your age might pause, and 
look back with great interest on the world of cir- 
cumstances through which life has been drawn. 
Consider what thousands of situations, appearances, 
incidents, persons, you have been present to, each 
in its moment. The review will present to you 
something like a chaos, with all the moral, and all 
other elements, confounded together ; and you may 
reflect till you begin almost to wonder how an indi- 
vidual retains even the same essence through all 
the diversities, vicissitudes, and counteractions of 
influence, that operate on it during its progress 
through the confusion. But though the essence is 



30 ON A man's writing 

the same, and might defy an universe to extinguish, 
absorb, or change it ; its modification, its condition, 
and habits, will show where it has been, and what 
it has undergone. You may descry on it the marks 
and colours of many of the things by which, in pass- 
ing, it has been touched or arrested. 

Consider the number of meetings with acquaint- 
ance, friends, or strangers ; the number of conver- 
sations you have held or heard ; the number of 
exhibitions of good or evil, virtue or vice ; the num- 
ber of occasion^ on which you have been disgusted 
or pleased, moved to admiration or to abhorrence ; 
the number of times that you have contemplated the 
town, the rural cottage, or verdant fields ; the num- 
ber of volumes that you have read ; the times that 
you have looked over the present state of the world, 
or gone by means of history into past ages ; the 
number of comparisons of yourself with other per- 
sons, alive or dead, and comparisons of them with 
one another; the number of solitary musings, of 
solemn contemplations of night, of the successive 
subjects of thought, and of animated sentiments that 
have been kindled and extinguished. Add all the 
hours and causes of sorrow that you have known. 
Through this lengthened, and, if the number could 
be told, stupendous multiplicity of things, you have 
advanced, while all their heterogeneous myriads 
have darted influences upon you, each one of thens 
having some definable tendency. A traveller round 
the globe would not meet a greater variety of sea- 
sons, prospects, and winds, than you might have 
recorded of the circumstances affecting the pro- 
gress of your character, in your moral journey. You 
could not wish to have drawn to yourself the agen- 
cy of a vaster diversity of causes ; you could not 
wish, on the supposition that you had gained ad- 
vantage from all these, to wear the spoils of a great- 
er number of regions. The formation of the char- 
acter from so many materials reminds one of that 
mightj^ appropriating attraction, which, on the iiy- 
pothesis that the resurrection should re-assembl© 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 31 

the same particles which composed the hody before, 
must draw them from dust, and trees, and animals, 
from ocean, and winds. 

It would scarcely be expected that a being which 
should be conducted through such anarchy of disci- 
pline, in which the endless crowd of influential 
powers seem waiting, each to take away what the 
last had given, shoufd be permitted to acquire, or to 
retain, any settled form of qualities at all. The 
more probable result would be, either several qual- 
ities disagreeing with one another, or a blank neu- 
trality. And in fict, a great number of nearly such 
neutralities are found every where ; persons, Avho, 
unless their sharing of the general properties of 
human nature, a little modified by the insignificant 
distinction of some large class, can be called char- 
acter, have no character. It is therefore somewhat 
strange, if you, and if other individuals, have came 
forth with moral features of a strongly marked and 
consistently combined cast, from the infinity of mis- 
cellaneous impressions. If the process has been so 
complex, how comes the result to be so simple ? 
How has it happened that the collective effect of 
these numerous and jarring operations on your mind, 
is that which only a few of these operations would 
have seemed adapted to produce, and quite different 
from that which many others of them would natur- 
ally have produced, and do actually produce in many 
other persons ? Here you will perceive that some 
one capital determination must long since have been 
by some means established in your mind, and that, 
during your progress, this grand determination has 
kept you susceptible of the effect of some influences, 
and fortified against many others. Now, what was 
the prevailing determination, whence did it come, 
how did it acquire its power ? Was it an original 
tendency and insuppressible impulse of your nature ? 
or the result of your earliest impressions ; or of 
some one class of impressions repeated oftenerthan 
any other ; or of one single impression of extreme 
force .? What was it, and whence did it come? 



32 ON A »IAN*S WRITING 

This is the great secret in the history of character ; 
for, it is scarcely necessary to observe, that as soon 
as the mind is under the power of a predominant 
tendency, the difficulty of g-rowing- into the maturity 
of that form of character, which this tendency pro- 
motes or creates, is substantially over. Because, 
when a determining principle is become predomi- 
nant, it not only produces a partial insensibility to 
all impressions that would counteract it, but also 
continually augments its own ascendency, by means 
of a faculty or fatality of finding out every thing, 
and attracting and meeting every impression, that 
is adapted to coalesce with it and strengthen it ; like 
the instinct of animals, which instantly selects from 
the greatest variety of substances those which are 
fit for their nutriment. Let a man have some lead- 
ing and decided propensity, and it will be surprising 
to see how many more things he will find, and how 
many more events will happen, than any one could 
have imagined, of a nature to reinforce it. And 
sometimes even circumstances which seemed of an 
entirely counteractive order, are sti'angely seduced 
by this predominant principle into an operation that 
confirms it ; just in the same manner as polemics 
most self-complacently avow their opinions to be 
more firmly established by all that the opponent has 
objected. 

It would be easy to enlarge without end on the 
influences of the surrounding world in forming the 
character of each individual ;"and no one would deny 
that to a considerable extent such a representation 
is true. But yet a man may be unwilling to allow 
that he has been quite so servilely passive as he 
would probably find that he has been, if it were* pos- 
sible for him to make a complete examination. He 
may be disposed to think that his reason has been 
an independent power, has kept a strict watch, and 
passed a right judgment on his moral progress, has 
met the circumstances of the external world on 
terms of examination and authority, and has permit- 
ted only such impressions to he received,, or at least 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 33 

only such consequences to follow from them, as it 
wisely approved. But I would tell him, that he has 
been a very extraordinary man, if the greater part 
of his time has not been spent entirely without a 
thouoht of reflecting what impressions were made 
on him, and what was their tendency ; and even 
without a consciousness that the effect of any im- 
pressions was of importance to his moral habits. He 
may be assured that he has been subjected to many 
gentle gradual processes, and has met many critical 
occasions, on which, and on the consequences of 
which to himself, he exercised no attention or opin^ 
ion. And again, it is unfortunately true, that even 
should attention be awake, and opinions be formed, 
the faculty which forms them is very servile to the 
other parts of the human constitution. If it could 
be extrinsic to the man, a kind of domestic Pythia, 
or an attendant genius, like the demon of Socrates, 
it might then be a dignified regulator of the influ- 



and in what manner; though even then, its dis- 
approving dictates would often be inefficacious 
against the powerful impressions which create an 
impulse in the mind, arid the repetition of them 
which confirms that impulse into a habit. But the 
case is, that this faculty, though mocked with impe- 
rial names, being condemned to dwell in the mind 
in the company of far more active powers than it^ 
self, and earlier exercised, becomes humbly obse-. 
quious to them. The passions easily beguile this 
majestic reason, or judgment, into neglect, or bribe 
it into acquiescence, or repress it into silence, while 
they receive the impressions, and while they acquire 
from those impressions that determinate direction 
which will constitute the character. If, after thus 
much is done during the weakness, or without the 
notice, or without the leave, or under the connivance 
or corruption of the judgment, it be called upon to 
perform its part in estimating the quality and actual 
effect of the modifying influences, it has to perforiQ 
4 



34 ON A man's writing 

this judicial work with just that degree of rectitude 
which it can have acquired and maintained under 
the operation of those very influences. In acting- 
the judge, it is itself in subjection to the effect of 
those impressions of v/hich its oliice was to have 
previously decided whether they should not be 
strenuously repelled. Thus its opinions will uncon- 
sciously be perverted ; like the answers of the an- 
cient oracles, dictated for the imaginary god by 
beings of a very terrestrial sort, though the sly in- 
tervention could not be perceived. It is quite a 
vulgar observation, how pleased a man may be with 
the formation of his own character, though ?/o?t laugh 
at the gravity of his persuasion, that his tastes, pre- 
ferences, and qualities, have on the whole grown 
up under the sacred and faithful guardianship of 
judgment, while in fact his judgment has accepted 
every bribe that has been offered to betray him. 



LETTER IV. 

Most of the Influences under which the Characters of Men are forming', unfavour- 
able to Wisdom, Virtue, and Happiness. ...Proof of this, if a Number of Persons, 
suppose a Hundred, were to give a clear Account of the i^ircumstances tliat have 
most aft'ected the state of their Minds. ..A few Exara^l^....a Misanthropist. ...a 
lazy prejudiced Thinker.. ..a man fancying himself ft. Genius. ...a Projector.. ..an 
Antiquarian in Excess... .a petty Tyrant. 

<t 

You will agree with me, that in a comprehensive 
view of the influences which have formed, and are 
forming, the characters of men, we shall find, religion 
excepted, but little cause to felicitate our species. 
Make the supposition that any assortment of persons, 
of sufficient number to comprise the most remarkable 
distinctions of character, should write memoirs of 
themselves so clear and perfect as to explain, to 
your discernment at least, if not to their own con- 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 35 

sciousness, the entire process by which their minds 
have attained their present state, recounting all the 
most impressive circumstances. If they were to 
read these memoirs to you in succession, and if your 
benevolence could so long be maintained in full 
exercise, and your rules for estimating lost nothing 
of their determinate principle in their application to 
such a confusion of subjects, you would often, during 
the disclosure, regret to observe how m.any things 
may be the causes of irretrievable mischief. Why 
is the path of life, you would say, so haunted as if 
with evil spirits of every diversity of noxious agency, 
some of which may patiently accompany, or others 
of which may suddenly cross, the unfortunate wan- 
derer ? And you would regret to observe into how 
many forms of intellectual and moral perversion the 
human mind readily yields itself to be modified. 

As one of the number concluded the account of 
himself, your observation would be, I perceive, with 
compassion, the process under which you have be- 
come a misanthropist. If your juvenile ingenuous 
ardour had not been chilled on your entrance into 
society, where your most favourite sentiments were 
not at all comprehended by some, and by others 
deemed wise and proper enough, perhaps for the 
people of the millennium ; if you had not felt the 
mortification of relatives being uncongenial, of per- 
sons whom you were anxious to render happy being 
indifferent to your kindness, or of apparent friend- 
ships proving treacherous or transitory ; if you had 
not met with such striking instances of hopeless 
stupidity in the vulgar, or of vain self-importance in 
the learned, or of the coarse or supercilious arro- 
gance of the persons whose manners were always 
regulated by the consideration of the number of 
guineas by which they were better than you ; if 
your mortifications had not given you a keen faculty 
of perceiving tbe all-pervading selfishness of man- 
kind, while, in addition, you had perhaps a peculiar 
opportunity to observe the apparatus of systematic 
villany, by which combinations of men are able to 



36 ON A man's writing 

arm their selfishness to oppress or ravage the world, 
you might even now perhaps have been the persua- 
sive instructer of beings, concerning whom you are 
wondering why they should have been made in the 
form of rationals ; you might have conciliated to 
yourself and to goodness, where you repel and are 
repelled ; you might have beqn the apostle and pat- 
tern of benevolence, instead of the grim solitaire. 
Yet not that the world should bear all the blame. 
Frail and changeable in virtue, you mi^ht perhaps 
have been good under a series of auspicious circum- 
stances ; but the glory had been to be victoriously 
good against malignant ones. Moses lost none of 
his generous concern for a people, on whom you 
would have invoked the waters of Noah or the fires 
of Sodom to return ; and that Greater than Moses, 
who endured from men such a matchless excess of 
injustice, while for their sake alone he sojourned 
and suffered on earth, was not alienated to live a 
misanthropist, nor to die one. 

A second sketch might exhibit external circum- 
stances not producing any effect more serious than 
an intellectual stagnation. When it was concluded, 
your reflecticm might be, — If I did not know that 
mental freedom is a dangerous thiiig in situations 
where the possessor would feel it a singular attain- 
ment; and if I did not prefer even the quiescence 
of unexamining belief, when tolerably right in the 
most material points, to the indifference or scepticism 
whicii feels no assurance or no importance in any 
belief, or to the weak presumption that darts into the 
newest and most daring opinions as therefore tnie — 
I should deplore that your life was destined to pre- 
serve its sedate course so entirely unanimated by 
the intellectual novelties of the age, the agitations 
of ever-moving opinion ; and under the habitual and 
exclusive influence of one individual, worthy perhaps, 
and in certiin degree sensible, but of unenlarged 
views, v'hom you have been taught and accustomed 
to regard as the comprehensive repository of all the 
truth requisite for you to know, and from whom you 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 37 

have derived, as some of your chief acquisitions, an 
assurance of the labour of inquiry being needless 
and a superstitious horror of innovation, without 
even knowing- what points are threatened by it. 

At the endi of another^ s disclosure, you would say, 
How unfortunate, that you could not believe there 
mi^-ht be respectable and valuable men, that were 
not born to be wits or poets. And how unfortunate 
were those first evenings that you were privileged 
to listen to a company of men Avho could say more 
fine things in an hour than their biographers will be 
able, without a little panegyric fiction, to record 
them to have done in the whole space of life. It was 
then you discovered that 3/0M too were of the progeny 
of Apollo, and that you had been iniquitously trans- 
ferred at your nativity into the hands of ignorant 
foster-parents, who had endeavoured to degrade and 
confine you to the sphere of regular employments 
and sober satisfactions. But, you would 'tower up 
to the region of your sire.' You saw what wonderful 
things might be found to be said on all subjects ; 
you found it not so very difficult yourself to say 
different things from other people ; and every thing 
that was not common dulness, was therefore pointed, 
every thing that was not sense by any vulgar rule, 
was therefore sublime. You adopted a certain vast- 
itude of phrase, mistaking extravagance of expres- 
sion for greatness of thought. You set yourself to 
dogmatize on books, and the abilities of men, but 
especially on their prejudices ; and perhaps to de- 
molish, with the air of an exploit, some of the trite 
observations and mnxims current in society. You 
awakened and surprised your imagination, by im- 
posing on it a stranire new tax of coloiirs and meta- 
phors ; a tax reluctantly and uncouthly paid, but 
perhaps in some one instance so luckily, as to gain 
the applause of these grifted (if they were not merely 
eccentric) men. This was to you the proof and 
recognition of fraternity ; and it has since been the 
chief question that has interested you -M'ith each 
acquaintance and in each company, whether they 



38 ON A man's writing 

too could perceive what you were so happy to have 
discovered, yet so anxious that the acknowledo-ment 
of others should confirm ; your own persuasion, 
however, became as pertinacious as ivy climbing a 
wall. It was almost of course to attend to necessary 
pursuits with reluctant irregularity, though suffering 
by the consequences of neglecting them, and to feel 
indignant that genius should be reproached for the 
disregard of these ordinary duties to which it ought 
never to have been subjected. 

During a projector'^s story of life and misfortunes, 
you might regret that he should ever have heard of 
Harrison's time-piece, the perpetual motion, or the 
Greek fire. 

After an antiquarian'' s history, you might be al- 
lowed to congratulate yourself on not having fallen 
under the spell which confines a human soul to in- 
habit, like a spider in one of the corners, a dusty 
room, consecrated with religious solemnity to old 
coins, rusty knives, illuminated mass books, swords 
and spurs of forgotten kings, and slippers of their 
queens ;■ with perhaps a Roman helmet, the acquisi- 
tion of which was the first cause of the collection 
and of the passion, elevated imperially over the 
relics of kings and queens and the whole museum, 
as the eagle once waved over the kingdoms and the 
world. And you might be inclined to say, I Avish 
that helmet had. been a pan for charcoal, or had been 
put on the head of one of the quiet equestrian war- 
riors in the Tower, or had aided the hauntings and 
rattlings of the ghost of Sir Godfrey in the Saron's 
castle where he was murdered, or had been worn 
by Don Quixote instead of the barber's bason, or 
had been the cauldron of Macbeth's witches, or had 
been in any other shape, place, or use, rather than 
dug up an antiquity, in a luckless hour, in a bank near 
your garden. 

I compassionate you, — would, in a very benevolent 
hour, be again your language to the we'althy unfeel- 
ing tyrant of a family and a neighbourhood, who 
seeks, in the overawed timidity and unretaliated 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 39 

injuries of the unfortunate beings within his power, 
— the gratification that should have been sought in 
their happiness. Unless you had brought into the 
world some extraordinary refractoriness to the influ- 
ence of evil, the process that you have undergone 
could not easily fail of being efficacious. Tf your 
parents idolized their own importance in their son 
so much, that they never opposed your inclinations 
themselves, nor permitted it to be done by any sub- 
ject to their authority ; if the humble companion, 
sometimes summoned to the honour of amusing you, 
bore your caprices and insolence with the rneekness 
without which he had lost his enviable privilege ; if 
you could despoil the garden of some harmless, de- 
pendent neighbour of the carefully reared floAvers, 
and torment his little dog or cat, without his daring 
to punish you or to appeal to your infatuated parents ; 
if aged men addressed you in a submissive tone, and 
with the appellation of ' Sir,' and their aged wives 
uttered their wonder at your condescension, and 
pushed their grandchildren away from around the 
fire for your sake, if you happened, though with the 
strut of pertness, and your hat on your head, to enter 
one of their cottages, perhaps to express your con- 
tempt of the homely dwelling, furniture, and fare ; 
if, in maturer life, you associated with vile persons^ 
who would forego the contest of equality, to be your 
allies in trampling on inferiors ; and if, both then 
and since, you have been suffered to deem your 
wealth the compendium or equivalent of every abil- 
ity, and every good quality — it would indeed be 
immensely strange if you had not become, in due 
time, the miscreant, who may thank the power of 
the laws in civilized society, that he is not assaulted 
witli clubs and stones ; to whom one could cordially 
wish the opportunity and the consequences of at- 
tempting his tyranny among some such people as 
those submissive sons of nature in the forests of 
North Ajptierica ; and whose dependents and domes- 
tic relatives may be almost forgiven when they shall 
one day rejoice at his funeral. 



40 



ON A man's writing 



LETTER V. 



An Atheist.... Slight Sketch of the Process by which a Man in the humbler Order 
of Abilities and Attainments may become one. 

I WILL imagine only one case more, on which you 
Would emphatically express your compassion, though 
for one of the most daring beings in the creation, a 
contemner of God, who explodes his laws by denying 
his existence. 

If you were so unacquainted with mankind, that 
this character might be announced to you as a rare 
or singular phenomenon, your conjectures, till you 
saw and heard the man, at the nature and the extent 
of the discipline through which he must have ad- 
vanced, would be led toward something extraordi- 
nary. And you might think that the term of that 
discipline must have been very long ; since a quick 
train of impressions, a short series of mental grada- 
tions, within the little space of a few months and 
years, would not seem enough to have matured such 
an awful heroism. Surely the creature that thus 
lifts his voice, and defies all invisible power within 
the possibilities of infinity, challenging whatever 
unknown being may hear him, and may appropriate 
that title of Almighty which is pronounced in scorn, 
to evince his existence, if he will, by his vengeance, 
was not as yesterday a little child that would tremble 
and cry at the approach of a, diminutive reptile. 

But indeed it is heroism no longer, if he knows 
that there is no God. The wonder then turns on 
the great process, by which a man could grow to the 
immense intelligence that can know that there is no 
God. What ages and what lights are requisite for 
THIS attainment! This intelligence involves the 
very attributes of Divinity, while a God is denied. 
For unless this man is omnipresent, unless he is at 
this moment in every place in the universe, he can- 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 41 

not know but there may be in some place manifest- 
ations of a Deity, by which even he would be over- 
powered. If he does not know absolutely every 
agent in the universe, the one that he does not know 
may be God. If he is not himself the chief agent in 
the universe, and does not know what is so, that 
which is so may be God. If he is not in absolute 
possession of all the propositions that constitute 
universal truth, the one which he wants may be, 
that there is a God. If he cannot with certainty 
assign the cause of all that he perceives to exist, 
that cause may be a God. If he does not know 
every thing that has been done in the immeasurable 
ages that are past, some th nrrs may have been done 
by a God. Thus, unless he knows all things, that 
is, precludes another Deity by being one himself, 
he cannot know that the: Being whose existence he 
rejects, does not exist. But he must know that he 
does not exist, else he deserves equal contempt and 
compassion for the temerity with which he firmly 
avows his rejection and acts accordingly. And yet 
a man of ordinary age and intelligence may present 
himself to you with the avowal of being thus distin- 
guished from the crowd ; and if he would describe 
the manner in which he has attained this eminence, 
you would feel a melancholy interest in contemplat- 
ing that process of which the result is so portentous. 
If you did not know that there are niore than a 
few such examples, you would say, in viewing this 
result, I should hope this is the consequence of some 
malignant intervention so occasional that ages may 
pass away before it return among men ; some pecu- 
liar conjunction of disastrous influences must have 
lighted on your selected soul ; you have been struck 
by that energy of evil which acted upon the spirits 
of Pharaoh and Epiphanes. But give your own de- 
scription of what you have met with in a world which 
has been deemed to present in every part the indi- 
cations of a Deity. Tell of the mysterious voices 
which have spoken to you from the deeps of the 
creation, falsifying the expressions marked on its 



42 ON A man's writing 

face. Tell of the new ideas, which, like meteors 
passin^y over the solitary wanderer, gave you the 
first glimpses of truth while benighted in the com- 
mon belief of the Divine existence. Describe the 
whole train of causes that have operated to create 
and consolidate that state of mind, which you carry 
forward to the great experiment of futurity under a 
different kind of hazard from all other classes of men. 
It would be found, however, that those circum- 
stances, by which even a man who had been pre- 
sented from his infancy with the ideas of religion, 
could be elated into a contempt of its great object, 
were far from being extraordinary. They might 
have been met by any man, whose mind had been 
cultivated and exercised enough to feel interested 
about holding any system of opinions at all, whose 
pride had . been gratified in the consciousness of 
having the liberty of selecting and changing opin- 
ions, and whose habitual assent to the principles of 
religion, had neither the firmness resulting from 
decisive arguments, nor the warmth of pious affec- 
tion.* Such a person had only, in the first place, to 

* It will he obvious that I am describing the progress of one of 
the humbler order of aliens from all religion, and not that by 
which the great philosophic leaders have ascended the dreary- 
eminence, where they look with so much complacency up to a 
vacant heaven, and down to the gulf of annihilation. Their pro- 
gress undoubtedly is much mere systematic and deliberate, and 
accompanied ofien by a laborious speculation, which, though in 
ever so perverted a train, the mind is easily persuaded to identify, 
because it is laborious, with the search after truth and the love of 
it. While however it is in a persevering train of thought, and not 
by the hasty movements of a more vuiuar mind, that they ])ursue 
their deviation from some of the principles of religion into a final 
abandonment of it all, they are very greatly mistaken, if they 
assure themselves that the moral causes which contribute to 
guide and animate their progress are all of a sublime order ; and 
if they could be fully revealed to their own view, they might 
perhaps be severely mortified to find what vulsiar motives, while 
they were despising vulsar men, have ruled their intellectual 
career. Pride, vv^hich idolizes self, which revolts at every thing 
that comes in the form of dictates, and exults to find that there is 
a possibility of controverting whether any dictates come from a 
greater than mortal source ; repugnance as well to the severe and 
sublime morality of the laws reputed of divine appointment, as 
to the feeling of accountableness to. an all-powerful Au,thority, 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 43 

come into intimate acquaintance with a man, who 
had the art of alluding to a sacred subject in a man- 
ner which, without appearing like intentional con- 
tempt, divested it of its solemnity ; and who had 
possessed himself of a few acute observations or 
plausible maxims, not explicitly hostile to revealed 
religion, but which, when opportunely brought into 
view in connexion with some points of it, tended to 
throw a slight degree of doubt on their truth and 
authority. Especially if either or both of these men 
had any"decided moral tendencies and pursuits of a 
kind which Christianity condemned, the friend of 
intellectual and moral freedom was assiduous to 
insinuate, that, according to the principles of reason 
and nature at least, it would be difficult to prove the 
wisdom or the necessity of some of those dictates of 
religion, which must, however, he admitted, be re- 
vered, because divine. Let the mind have once 
acquired a feeling, as if the sacred system might in 
some points be invalidated, and the involuntary in- 
ference would be rapidly extended to other parts, 
and to the whole. Nor was it long probably before 
this new instructor plainly avowed his own entire 
emancipation from a popular prejudice, to Avhich he 
was kindly sorry to find a sensible young man still 
in captivity. But he had no doubt that the deduc- 
tions of enlightened reason would successfully ap- 
peal to every liberal mind. And accordingly, after 
perhaps a few months of frequent intercourse, with 
the addition of two or three books, and the ready 
aid of all the recollected vices of pretended Chris- 
tians, and pretended Christian churches, the whole 
venerable magnificence of Revelation was annihila- 

that will not leave moral laws to be enforced solely by tbeir own 
sanctions ; contempt of inferior men ; the attraction of a few bril- 
liant examples ; the fashion of a class ; the ambition of shevving 
whnt ability can do, and what boldness can dare — if such thinfrs 
as these, alter all, have excited and directed the efforts of a phi- 
losophic spirit, the unbelievin"; philosopher must be content to ac- 
knowledjie plenty of companions and rivals among little men, 
who are quite as "capable of being actuated by these elevated prin- 
ciples as himself. 



44 ON A man's writing 

ted. Its illuminations respecting the Divinity, its mi- 
racles, its Messiah, its authority of moral legislation, 
its regions of immortality and retribution, the sublime 
virtues and devotion of its prophets, apostles, and 
martyrs, together with the reasonings of so many ac- 
complished advocates, and the credibility of history 
itself, were vanished all away ; while the convert^ ex- 
ulting in his disenchantment, felt a strange pleasure 
to behold nothing but a dreary train of impostures 
and credulity stretching over those past ages which 
lately were gilded witli so divine a vision, and the 
thickest Egyptian shades fallen on that total vast 
futurity which the spirit of inspiration had partially 
and very solemnly illuminated. 

Nothing tempts the mind so powerfully on, as to 
have successfully begun to demolish what has been 
deemed to be most sacred. The soldiers of Csssar 
probably had never felt themselves so brave, as after 
they had cut down the Massilian grove ; nor the 
Philistines, as when the ark of the God of Israel was 
among their spoils : the mind is proud of its triumphs 
in proportion to the reputed greatness of what it has 
overcome. And many examples would seem to in- 
dicate, that the first proud triumphs over religious 
faith involve some fatality of advancing, however 
formidable the mass of arguments which may ob- 
struct the progress, to further victories. But perhaps 
, the intellectual difficulty of the progress might be 
less than a zealous believer would be apt to irnagine. 
As the ideas which give the greatest distinctness to 
our conception of a Divine Being are imparted by 
revelation, and rest on its authority, the rejection of 
that revelation would in a great measure banish 
those ideas, and destroy that distinctness. We have 
but to advert to pure heathenism, to perceive what 
a faint conception of this Being could be formed by 
the strongest intellect in the absence of revelation ; 
and after the rejection of it, the mind would naturally 
be carried very far back toward that darkness, so 
that some of the attributes of the Deity would im- 
mediately become, as they were with the heathens, 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 45 

subjects of doubtful conjecture and hopeless specu- 
lation. But from this state of thought it is perhaps 
no vast transition to that, in which his being also 
shall begin to appear a subject of doubt ; sinee the 
reality of a being is with difficulty apprehended, in 
proportion as its attributes are undefinable. And 
when the mind is brought into doubt, we know it 
easily advances to disbelief, if to the smallest plaus- 
ibility of arguments be added any powerful moral 
cause for wishing such a conclusion. In the present 
case, there mi^ht be a very powerful cause, besides 
that pride of victory which I have just noticed. The 
progress in guilt, which generally follows a rejection 
of revelation, makes it still more and more desirable 
that no object should remain to be feared. It was 
not strange, therefore, if this man read with avidity, 
or even strange if he read with something which his 
wishes completed into conviction, a few of the writ- 
ers, who have attempted the last achievement of 
presumptuous man. After inspecting these pages 
a while, he raised his eyes, and the Great Spirit was 
gone. Mighty transformation of all things! The 
luminaries of heaven no longer shone with his splen- 
dour ; the adorned earth no longer looked fair with 
his beauty ; the darkness of night had ceased to be 
rendered solemn by his majesty ; life and thought 
were not an effect of his all-pervading energy ; it 
was not his providence that supported an infinite 
charge of dependent beings ; his empire of justice 
no longer spread over the universe ; nor had even 
that universe sprung from his all-creating power. 
Yet when you saw the intellectual course brought 
to this signal conclusion, though aware of the force 
of each precedino- and predisposing circumstance, 
you might nevertheless be somewhat struck with 
the suddenness of the final decision, and might be 
curious to know what kind of argument and elo- 
quence could so quickly finish the work. You would 
examine those pages with the expectation probably 
of something more powerful than subtlety attenuated 
into inanity, and, in that invisible and impalpable 



46 ON A man's writing 

state, mistaken by the writer, and willingly admitted 
by the perverted reader, for profundity of reasoning ; 
tfian attempts to destroy the certainty, or preclude 
the application, of some of those great familiar prin- 
ciples which must be taken as the basis of human 
reasoning, or it can have no basis ; than suppositions 
which attribute the order of the universe to such 
causes as it would be felt ridiculous to pronounce 
adequate to produce the most trifling piece of mech- 
anism ; than mystical jargon which, under the name 
of nature, alternately exalts almost into the properties 
of a god, and reduces far below those of a man, some 
imaginary and undefinable agent or agency, which 
performs the most amazing works without power, 
and displays the most amazing wisdom without in- 
telligence ; than a zealous preference of that part 
of every great dilemna which merely confounds and 
sinks the mind, to that which elevates while it over- 
whelms it ; than a constant endeavour to degrade 
as far as possible every thing that is sublime in our 
speculations and feelings, or than monstrous parallels 
between religion and mythology. You would be 
still more unprepared to expect on so solemn a sub- 
ject the occasional wit, or affectation of wit, which 
would seem rather prematurely expressive of exulta- 
tion that the grand Foe is retiring. 

A feeling of com.plete certainty would hardly be 
thus rapidly attained ; but a slight degree of remain- 
ing doubt, and of consequent apprehension, would 
not prevent this disciple of darkness from accepting 
the invitation to pledge himself to the cause in some 
associated band, where profaneness and vice would 
consolidate impious opinions without the aid of aug- 
mented conviction ; and Avhere the fraternity, having 
been elated by the spirit of social daring to say, 
What is the Almighty that ive should serve him? 
the individuals might acquire each a firmer boldness 
to exclaim, Who is the Lord that / should obey his 
voice ? Thus easy it is, my friend, for a man to 
meet that train of influences which may seduce him 
to live an infidel, though it may betray him to die a 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 47 

terrified believer ; that train of which the infatuation, 
■while it promises him the impunity of non-existence, 
and degrades him to desire it, impels him to fill the 
measure of his iniquity, till the divine wrath come 
upon him to the uttermost. 



LETTER VI. 

The Influence of Relig-ion counteracted by almost ail other Influences.. ..Pensive 
Reflections on the imperfect Manifestation of the Supreme Being-.. ..on tiie inefli- 
cacy of the Bel'ef of such a Being-. ...on the Strangeness of that IneHicacy....anJ 
on the Debasement and Jnfeiicity^conseqnent on it?.. .Happiness of a devout Man. 

In recounting so many influences that operate on 
man, it is grievous to observe that the incomparably 
noblest of all, religion, is counteracted with a fatal 
success by a perpetual conspiracy of almost all the 
rest, aided by the intrinsic predisposition of our na- 
ture, which yields itself with such consenting facility 
to every impression tending to estrange it still fur- 
ther from God. 

It is a cause for wonder and sorroAv, to see millions 
of rational creatures growing into their permanent 
habits, under the conforming efficacy of every thing 
which they ought to resist, and receiving no part of 
those habits from impressions of the Supreme Object. 
They are content that a narrow scene of a diminu- 
tive world, with its atoms and evils, should usurp and 
deprave and finish their education for immortality, 
■while the Infinite Spirit is here, whose transforming 
companionship would exalt them into his sons, and, 
in defiance of a thousand malignant forces attempt- 
ing to stamp on them an opposite image, lead them 
into eternity in his likeness. Oh why is it so possi- 
ble that this greatest inhabitant of every place where 
men are living, should be the last whose society they 



48 ON A man's writing 

seek, or of whose being constantly near them they 
feel the importance ? Why is it possible to be sur- 
rounded with the intelligent Reality, which exists 
wherever we are, with attributes that are infinite, 
and not feel, respecting all other things which may 
be attempting to press on our minds and aftect their 
character, as if they retained with dilERculty their 
shadows of existence, and were continually on the 
point of vanishing into nothing? Why is this stu- 
pendous Intelligence so retired and silent, while 
present, over all the scenes of the earth, and in all 
the scenes of the earth, and in all the paths and 
abodes of men ? Why does he keep his glory invis- 
ible behind the shades and visions of the material 
world ? Why does not this latent glory sometimes 
beam forth with such a manifestation as could never 
loe forgotten, nor ever be remembered without an 
emotion of religious fear ? And why, in contempt 
of all that he has displayed to excite either fear or 
love, is it still possible for a rational creature so to 
live, that it must finally come to an interview with 
him in a character completed by the full assemblage 
of those acquisitions, which have separately been 
disapproved by him through every stage of the ac- 
cumulation ? Why is it possible for feeble creatures, 
to maintain their little dependent beings fortified 
and invincible in sin, amidst the presence of divine 
purity ? Why does not the thought of such a Being 
strike through the mind with such intense antipathy 
to evil, as to blast with death every active principle 
that is beginning to pervert it, and render gradual 
additions of depravity, growing into the solidity of 
habit, as impossible as for perishable materials to be 
raised into structures amidst the fires of the last day ? 
How is it possible to forget the solicitude, which 
should accompany the consciousness that such a 
Being is continually darting upon us the beams of 
observant thought, (if we may apply such a term to 
Omniscience ;) that we are exposed to the piercing 
inspection, compared to which the concentrated at- 
tention of all the beings in the universe besides, 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 49 

would be but as the powerless gaze of an infant ? 
Why is faith, that faculty of spiritual apprehension, 
so absent, or so incomparably more slow and reluc- 
tant to receive a just perception of the grandest of 
its objects, than the senses are adapted to receive 
the impressions of theirs ? While there is a Spirit 
pervading the universe with an infinite energy of 
being, why have the few particles of dust which 
enclose our spirits the power to intercept all sensible 
communication with it, and to place them as in a 
vacuity, where the sacred Essence had been pre- 
cluded or extinguished ? 

The reverential submission, with which you ought 
to contemplate the mystery of omnipotent benevo- 
lence forbearing to exert the agency, which could 
assume an instantaneous ascendency in every mind 
over the causes of depravation and ruin, will not 
avert your compassion from the unhappy persons 
who are practically ' without God in the world.' And 
if, by some vast enlargement of thought, you could 
comprehend the whole measure and depth of disaster 
contained in this exclusion, (an exclusion under 
which, to the view of a serious mind, the resources 
and magnificence of the creation would sink into a 
mass of dust and ashes, and all the causes of joy 
and hope into disgust and despair,) you would feel a 
distressing emotion at each recital of a life in which 
religion had no share ; and you would be tempted to 
wish that some spirit from the other world, possessed 
of eloquence that might threaten to alarm the slum- 
bers of the dead, would throw himself in the way of 
this one mortal, and this one more, to protest, in 
sentences of lightning and thunder, against the in- 
fatuation that can at once acknowledge there is a 
God, and be content to forego every connexion with 
him, but that of danger. You would wish they should 
rather be assailed by the 'terror of the Lord,' than 
retain the satisfaction of carelessness till the day of 
his mercy be past. 

But you will not need such enlargement of com- 
prehension, in order to compassionate the situation 
5. 



50 

of persons who, with reason sound to think, and 
hearts not strangers to feeling, have advanced far 
into life, perhaps near to its close, without having 
felt the influence of religion. If there is such a 
Being' as we i^ean by the term God, the ordinary- 
intelligence of a serious mind will be quite enough 
to see that it must be a melancholy thing to pass 
through life, and quit it, just as if there were not. 
And sometimes it will appear as strange as it is 
melancholy ; especially to a person who has been 
pious from his youth. He would be inclined to say, 
to a person who has nearly finished an irreligious 
life. What would have been justly thought of you, if 
you could have been the greatest part of your time 
m the society of the wisest and best man on earth, 
(were it possible to have ascertained that individual,) 
and have acquired no degree of conformity ; much 
more, if you could all the while have acquired pro- 
gressively the meanness, prejudices, follies, and 
vices, of the lowest society, with which you might 
have been exposed at intervals to mingle ? You 
might have been asked how this was possible. But 
then through what defect or infatuation of mind have 
you been able, during so many years spent in the 
presence of a God, to continue even to this hour as 
clear of all marks and traces of any divine influences 
having operated on you, as if the Deity were but a 
poetical fiction, or an idol in some temple of Asia ? — 
Evidently, as the immediate cause, through want of 
thought concerning him. 

And why did you not think of him ? Did a most 
solemn thought of him never once penetrate your 
soul, while admitting the proposition that there is 
such a Being? If it never did, what is reason, what 
is mind, what is man ? If it did once, how could its 
effects stop there ? How could a deep thought, on 
so singular and momentous a subject, fail to impose 
on the°mind a permanent necessity of frequently re- 
calling it ; as some awful or magnificent spectacle 
will haunt you with a long recurrence of its image, 
even if the spectacle itself were seen no more ? 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 51 

Why did you not think of him ? How could you 
estimate so meanly your mind with all its capacities, 
as to feel no regret that an endless series of trifles 
should seize, and occupy as their right, all your 
thoughts, and deny them both the liberty and the 
ambition of going on to the greatest Object ? How, 
while called to the contemplations which absorb the 
spirits of Heaven, could you be so patient of the 
task of counting the flies of a summer's day ? 

Why did you not think of Him ? You knew your- 
self to be in the hands of some Being from whose 
power you could not be withdrawn ; was it not an 
equal defect of curiosity and prudence to indulge a 
careless confidence that sought no acquaintance 
with his nature and his dispositions, nor ever anx- 
iously inquired what conduct should be observed 
toward him, and what expectations might be enter- 
tained from him ? You would have been alarmed 
to have felt yourself in the power of a mysterious 
stranger, of your own feeble species ; but let the 
stranger be omnipotent, and you cared no more. 

Why did you not think of Him ? One would deem 
that the thought of him must, to a serious mind, come 
second to almost every thought. The thought of 
virtue would suggest the thought of both a lawgiver 
and a re warder ; the thought of crime, of an avenger ; 
the thought of sorrow, of a consoler ; the thought 
of an inscrutable mystery, of an intelligence that 
understands it ; the thought of that ever-moving 
activity which prevails in the system of the universe, 
of a supreme agent ; the thought of the human fam- 
ily, of a great father ; the thought of all being not 
necessary and self-existent, of a creator : the thought 
of life, of a preserver ; and the thought of death, of 
an uncontrollable disposer. By what dexterity, 
therefore, of irreligious caution, did you avoid pre- 
cisely every track where the idea of him would have 
met you, or elude that idea if it came ? And what 
must sound reason pronounce of a mind which, in 
the train of millions of thoughts, has wandered to all 
things under the sunj to all the permanent objects 



62 ON A man's writing 

or vanishing appearances in the creation, but never 
fixed its thought on the Supreme Reality; never 
-approached, like Moses, 'to see this great sight ?' 

If it were a thing which we might be allowed to 
imagine,, that the Divine Being were to manifest 
himself in some striking manner to the senses, as by 
some resplendent appearance at the midnight hour, 
or by rekindling on an elevated mountain the long 
extinguished fires of Sinai, and uttering voices from 
tliose fires ; would he not compel from you an at- 
tention which you now refuse ? Yes, you will say, 
he would then seize the mind with irresistible force, 
and religion would become its most absolute senti- 
ment ; but he only presents himself to faith. Well, 
and is it a worthy reason for disregarding him, that 
you only believe him to be present and infinitely glo- 
rious ? Is it the oQice of faith to veil or annihilate 
its object? Cannot you reflect, that the grandest 
representation of a spiritual and divine Being to the 
senses would bear not only no proportion to his glo- 
ry, but no relation to his nature ; and could be 
adapted only to an inferior dispensation of religion, 
and to a people Avho, with the exception of a most 
extremely small number of men, had been totally 
untaught to carry their thoughts beyond t^ie objects 
of sense ? Are you not aware, that such a repre- 
sentation would considerably tend to restrict you in 
your contemplation to a defined image, and therefore 
a most inadequate and subordinate idea of the divine 
Being? While the idea admitted by faith, though 
less immediately striking, is capable of an illimitaWe 
expansion, by the addition of all that progressive 
thought can accumulate, under the continual cer- 
tainty that all is still infinitely short of the reality ? 

On the review of a cliaracter thus grown, in the 
exclusion of the religious influences, to the mature 
and perhaps ultimate state, the sentiment of pious 
benevolence would be, I regard you as an object of 
great compassion : unless there can be no felicity 
in friendship with the Almighty, unless there be no 
glory in being assimilated to his excellence, unless 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 53 

there be no eternal rewards for his devoted servants, 
unless there be no danger in meeting him, at length, 
after a life estranged equally from his love and his 
fear. I deplore, at every period and crisis in the 
review of your life, that religion was not there. If 
religion had been there, your youthful animation 
would neither have been dissipated in the frivolity 
which, in the morning of the short day of life, fairly 
and formally sets aside all serious business for that 
day, nor would have sprung forward into the emula- 
tion of vice, or the bravery of profaneness. If religion 
had been there, that one despicable companion, and 
that other malignant one, would not have seduced 
you into their society, or would not have retained 
you to share their degradation. And if religion had 
accompanied the subsequent progress of your life, 
it would have elevated you to rank, at this hour, with 
those saints who will soon be added to 'the spirits 
of the just.' Instead of which, what are you now, 
and what are your expectations from that world, 
where piety alone can hope to find such a sequel of 
life, as will inspire exultation in the retrospect of 
this introductory period, in which the mind began 
to converse with the God of eternity ? 

On the other hand, it would be interesting to re 
cord, or to hear, the history of a character which has 
received its form, and reached its maturity, under 
the strongest operations of religion. We do not 
know that there is a more beneficent or a more di- 
rect mode of the divine agency in any part of the 
creation than that which ' apprehends' a man, as 
apostolic language expresses it, amidst the unthink 
ing crowd, and leads him into serious reflection, into 
elevated devotion, into progressive virtue, and finally 
into a nobler life after death. When he has long 
been commanded by this influence, he will be happy 
to look back to its first operations, whether they 
were mingled in early life almost insensibly with his 
feelings, or came on him with mighty force at some 
particular time, and in connexion with some assign- 
able and memorable circumstance, which was appa- 



54 ON A MAN^S WRITING 

rently the instrumental cause. He will trace all 
the progress of this his better life, with grateful 
acknowledgment to the sacred power which has 
advanced him to a decisiveness of religious habit 
that seems to stamp eternity on his character. In 
the greater majority of things, habit is a greater 
plague than ever afflicted Egypt ; in religious char- 
acter, it is a grand felicity. The devout man exults 
in the indications of his being fixed and irretrievable^ 
He feels this confirmed habit as the grasp of the 
hand of God, which will never let him go. From 
this advanced state he looks with firmness and joy 
on futurity, and says, I carry the eternal mark upon 
me that I belong to God ; I am free of the universe ; 
and I am ready to go to any world to which he shall 
please to transmit me, certain that every where, in 
lieight or depth, he will acknowledge me forever. 



LETTER VH. 

Self-knowledge being supposed the principal Object in writing- the Memoir, the 
Train of exterior Fortunes and Actions will claim but a subordinate Notice in H 
....If it were intended fur the amusement of the Public, the Writer would do welj 
to fill it rather with Incident and Action. ...Yet the mere mental History of some 
Men would be interesting to reflecting- Readers. ...of a Man, for example, of a 
speculative Disposition, who has passed through many Changes ©f Opinion.... 
Influences that warp Opinion... .Effects of Time and Experience on the Notions 
and Feelings cherished in Rarly Life... Jeelings of a sensible old Man on view- 
ing a Picture of his own Mind drawn by himself when he was young.... Failure 
of 'excellent Designs ; Disappointment of sanguine Hopes. ...Degree of Explicit- 
ness required in^the Record... .Conscience... .Impudence and canting false Pre- 
tences of many Writers of " Confessions. "....Rousseau. 

The preceding letters have attempted to exhibit 
only general views of the influences by which a 
reflective man may perceive the moral condition of 
his mind to have been determined. 

In descending into more particular illustrations, 
there would have been no end of enumerating the 
local circumstancesj the relationships af life, the 



MEMOIRS Of HIMSELF, 55 

professions and employments, and the accidental 
events, which may have affected the character. A 
person who feels any interest in reviewing what 
has formed thus far his education for futurity, may 
carry his own examination into the most distinct 
particularity. — A few miscellaneous observations 
will conclude the essay. 

You will have observed that I have said compara- 
tively little of that which forms the exterior, and in 
general account the main substance, of the history 
of a man's life — the train of his fortunes and actions. 
If an adventurer or a soldier writes memoirs of him- 
self for the information or amusement of the public, 
he may do well to keep his narrative alive by a con- 
stant crowded course of facts ; for the greater part 
of his readers will excuse him the trouble of inves- 
tigating, and he might occasionally feel it a conve- 
nience to be excused from disclosing, if he had 
investigated, the history and merits of his internal 
principles. Nor can this ingenuousness be any part 
of his duty, any more than it is that of a fiddler at a 
ball, so long as he tells all that probably he professes 
to tell, that is, where he has been, what he has wit- 
nessed, and the more reputable portion of what he 
has done. Let him go on with his lively anecdotes, 
or his legends of the marvellous, or his gazettes of 
marches, stratagems and skirmishes, and there is no 
obligation for him to turn either penitent or philoso- 
pher on our hands. But I am supposing a man to 
retrace himself through his past life, in order to 
acquire a deep self-knowledge, and to record the 
investigation for his own instruction. Through such 
a retrospective examination, the exterior life will 
hold but the second place in attention, as being the 
imperfect offspring of that internal state, which it is 
the primary and more difficult object to review. 
From an effectual inquisition into this inner man, 
the investigator may proceed outward, to the course 
of his actions ; of which he will thus have become 
qualified to form a much juster estimate, than he 
could by any exercise of judgment -upon them re- 



36 ON A MAN^S WRITINGf 

garded merely as exterior facts. No doubt that 
sometimes also, in a contrary process, the judgment 
will be directed upon the dispositions and principles 
within by a consideration of the actions without, 
which will serve as^ a partial explicitation of the 
interior character. StHl it is that interior character, 
whether displayed in actions or nx^t, which forms the 
leading object of inquiry. The chief circumstances 
©f his practical life will, however, require to be noted^ 
both for the purpose of so much illustration as the}? 
will afford of the state of his mind, and because they 
mark the points, and distinguish the stages of his 
progress. 

Though in memoirs intended for publication, a 
large share of incident and action would generally 
be necessary, yet there are some men whose mental 
history alone might be very interesting to reflective 
readers ; as, for instance, that of a thinking raan„ 
remarkable for a number of complete changes of his. 
speculative system^ From observing the usual te- 
nacity of views once deliberately adopted in mature 
life, we regard as a curious phenomenon the man- 
whose mind has been a kind of caravansera of opin- 
ions, entertained awhile, and then sent on pilgrim- 
age ; a man who has admired and dismissed systems 
with the same facility with which John Buncle found, 
adored, married, and inteiTed, his succession of 
wives, each one being, for the time, not only better 
than all that went before, but the best in the crea- 
tion. You admire the versatile aptitude of a mind, 
sliding into successive forms of belief in this intel- 
lectual metempsychosis by which it animates so many 
new bodies of doctrines in their turn. And as none of 
those dying pangs which hurt you in a tale of India, 
attend the desertion of each of these speculative 
forms which the soul has awhile inhnbited, you are 
extremely amused by the number of transitions, and 
eagerly ask what is to be the next ; for you never- 
deem the present state of such a man's views to be 
for permanence, unless perhaps when he has termi- 
nated his. course of believing every thing, ia ultk 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 57 

mutely believing nothing'. Even then, unless he is 
very old, or feels more pride in being a sceptic, the 
conqueror of all systems, than he ever felt in being 
the champion of one, even then, it is very possible 
he may spring up again, like a vapour of lire from a 
bog, and glimmer through new mazes, or retrace his 
course through half of those which he trod before. 
You will observe, that no respect attaches to this 
Proteus of opinion, after his changes have been mul^ 
tiplied ; as no party expect him to remain with them, 
nor deem him much of an acquisition if he should. 
One, or perhaps two, considerable changes, will be 
regarded as signs of a liberal inquirer, and therefore 
the party to which his first or his second intellectual 
conversion may assign him, will receive him gladly. 
But he will be deemed to have abdicated the dignity 
of reason, when it is found that he can adopt no prin^ 
ciples but to betray them ; and it will be perhaps 
Justly suspected that there is something extremely 
infirm in the structure of that mind, whatever vigour 
may mark some of its operations, to which a series 
of very different, and sometimes contrasted theories, 
can appear in succession demonstratively true, and 
which imitates sincerely the perverseness which 
Petruchio only aflfected, declaring that which was 
yesterday, to a certainty, the sun, to be to-day, as 
certainly, the moon. 

It would be curious to observe in a man who should 
make such an exhibition of the course of his mind, 
the sly deceit of self-love. While he despises the 
system which he has rejected, he does not deem it to 
imply so great a want of sense in him once to have 
embraced it, as in the rest, who were then or are 
now its disciples and advocates. No, in him it was 
no debility of reason, it was at the utmost but a 
merge of it ; and probably he is prepared to explain 
to you that such peculiar circumstances, as might 
warp even a very strong and liberal mind, attended 
his consideration of the subject, and misled him to 
admit the belief of what others prove themselves! 
fools by believing, 
6 



58 ON A man's writing 

Another thing apparent in a record of changed 
opinions would be, what I have noticed before, that 
there is scarcely any such thing in the world as sim- 
ple conviction. It would be amusing to observe how 
reason had, in one instance, been overruled into ac- 
quiescence by the admiration of a celebrated name, 
or in another, into opposition by the envy of it ; how 
most opportunely reason discovered the truth just 
at the time that interest could be essentially served 
by avowing it ; how easily the impartial examiner 
could be induced to adopt some part of another man's 
opinions, after that other had zealously approved 
some favourite, especially if unpopular, part of his; 
as the Pharisees almost became partial even to 
Christ, at the moment that he defended one of their 
doctrines against the Sadducees. It would be curi- 
ous to see how a respectful estimate of a man's char- 
acter and talents might be changed, in consequence 
of some personal inattention experienced from him, 
into depreciating invective against him or his intel- 
lectual performances, and yet the railer, though 
actuated solely by petty revenge, account himself, 
all the while, the model of equity and sound judg- 
ment. It might be seen Iioav the patronage of power 
could elevate miserable prejudices into revered wis- 
dom, while poor old Experience was mocked with 
thanks for her instruction ; and how the vicinity or 
society of the rich, and, as they are termed, great, 
could perhaps transmute a soul that seemed to be of 
the stern consistence of the early Roman republic, 
into the gentlest wax on which Corruption could 
wish to imprint the venerable creed, ' The right di- 
vine of kings to govern wrong,' with the pious and 
loyal inference of the flagrant iniquity of expelling 
Tarquin. I am supposing the observer to perceive 
all these accommodating dexterities of reason ; for 
it were probably absurd to expect that any mind 
should itself be able, in its review, to. detect all its 
own obliquities, after having been so long beguiled, 
like the mariners in a story which I remember to 
have read, who followed the direction of their com- 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 59 

pass, infallibly right as they could have no doubt, till 
they arrived at an enemy's port, where they were 
seized and made slaves. It happened that the wicked 
captain, in order to betray the ship, had concealed a 
large loadstone at a little distance on one side of 
the needle. 

On the notions and expectations of one stage of 
life, I suppose all reflecting men look back with a kind 
of contempt, though it may be often with a mingling 
wish that some of its enthusiasm of feeling could be 
recovered, — I mean the period between childhood 
and maturity. They will allow that their reason 
was then feeble, and they are prompted to exclaim, 
What fools we have been — while they recollect 
How sincerely they entertained and advanced the 
most ridiculous speculations on the interests of life, 
and the questions of truth ; how regretfully aston- 
ished they were to find the mature sense of some of 
those around them so completely wrong ; yet in 
other instances what veneration they felt for author- 
ities for which they have since lost all their re- 
spect ; what a fantastic importance they attached 
to some most trivial things ;* what complaints against 
their fate were uttered on account of disappointments 
which they have since recollected with gaiety or 
self-congratulation ; what happiness of Elysium they 
expected from sources which would soon have failed 
to impart even common satisfaction ; and how cer- 
tain they were that the feelings and opinions then 
predominant would continue through life. 

If a reflective aged man were to find at the bottom 
of an old chest, where it had lain forgotten fifty 
years, a record which he had written of himself when 
he was young, simply and vividly describing his 
whole heart and pursuits, and reciting verbatim many 
recent passages of the language sincerely uttered 
to his favourite companions ; would he not read it 

* T recollect a youth of some acquirements, who earnestly 
wished the time might one day arrive, when his name should be 
adorned with the addition of D. D. which he deemed one of the 
subiimest of human distinctions. 



60 ON A man's writing 

with more wonder than almost any other writing' 
could at his age inspire ? His consciousness would 
be strangely confused in the attempt to verify his 
identity with such a being. He would feel the young 
man, thus introduced to him, separated by so wide a 
distance of character as to render all congenial com- 
munion impossible. At every sentence he might 
repeat, Foolish youth ! I have no sympathy with 
your feelings, I can hold no converse with your un- 
derstanding. Thus you see that in the course of a 
long life a man may be several moral persons, so 
various from one another, that if you could find a 
real individual that should nearly exemplify the char- 
acter in one of these stages, and another that should 
exemplify it in the next, and so on to the last, and 
then bring these several persons together into one 
society, which would thus be a representation of 
the successive states of one man, they would feel 
themselves a most heterogeneous party, would op- 
pose and probably despise one another, and soon 
separate, not caring if they were never to meet again. 
The dissimilarity in mind between the two extremes, 
the youth of seventeen and the sage of seventy, 
might perhaps be little less than that in countenance ; 
and as the one of these contrasts might be contem- 
plated by an old man, if he had a true portrait for 
which he sat in the bloom of life, and should hold it 
beside a mirror in which he looks at his present 
countenance, the other would be powerfully felt if 
he had such a genuine and detailed memoir as I have 
supposed.*' Might it not be worth while for a self- 
observant person in early life, to preserve, for the 
inspection of the old man, if he should live so long, 
such a mental likeness of the young one ? If it be 
not drawn near the r 
sufficient accuracy. 

* Since a character, and a set, of. opinions, once formed, nert 
unfreqiieiitly continue substantially through life, perhaps the moral 
and intellectnal difference between the stages, iy not quite as 
great as the physical. Some people have in tact but three or four 
stages in the whole of life. 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 61 

If this sketch of life were not written till a very 
mature or an advanced period of it, a somewhat in- 
teresting point would be, to distinguish the periods 
during wiiich the mind made its greatest progress 
in the enlargement of its faculties, and the time 
when they appeared to have reached and acknowl- 
edged their insuperable limits. And if there have 
been vernal seasons, if I may so express it, of good- 
ness also, periods separated off from the latter course 
of life by some point of time, subsequent to which 
the Christian virtues have had a less generous 
growth, this is a circumstance still more worthy to 
fee strongly marked. No doubt it will be with a 
reluctant hand that a man marks either of these 
circumstances ; for he could not reflect, without re- 
gret, that many children may have grown into ma- 
turity and great talent, and many unformed or de- 
fective characters into established excellence, since 
the period when he ceased to become abler or better. 
Pope, for instance, at the age of fifty, would have 
been incomparably more mortified than, as Johnson 
says, his readers are, at the fact, if he had perceived 
it, that he could not then write materially better than 
he had written at the age of twenty. And the con- 
sciousness of having passed many years without any 
moral and religious progress, ought to be not merely 
the regret for an infelicity, but the remorse of guilt; 
since, though natural causes must somewhere have 
circumscribed and fixed the extent of the intellectual 
power, an incessant advancement in the nobler dis- 
tinctions has still continued to be possible, and 
v/ill be possible, till the evening of rational life. 
The instruction resulting from a clear estimate of 
what has been effected or not in this capital concern, 
is the chief advantage to be derived from recording 
the stages of life, comparing one part with another, 
and bringing the whole into a comparison with the 
standard of' perfection, and the illustrious human 
examples which have approached that standard the 
nearest. In forming this estimate, we shall keep ia 
view the vast series of advantages and monitions, 



62 ON A man's writing 

which has run parallel to the train of years ; and it 
will be inevitable to recollect, sometimes with mor- 
tification bordering on anguish, the sanguine calcu- 
lations of improvement of the best kind, which at 
various periods the mind was delighted to make for 
other given future periods, should life be protracted 
till then, and promised itself most certainly to Te-dWze 
by the time of their arrival. The mortification will 
be still more grievous, if there was at those past 
seasons something more hopeful than mere confident 
presumptions, if there were actual favourable omens, 
which partly justified while they raised, in ourselves 
and others, anticipations that have mournfully failed. 
My dear friend, it is very melancholy that evil 
must be so palpable, so hatefully conspicuous, to an 
enlightened conscience, in every retrospect of a 
human life. 

If the supposed memoirs are to be carried forward 
as life advances, each period being recorded as soon 
as it has elapsed, they should not be composed by 
small daily or weekly accumulations, (though this 
practice may on another ground have its value,) but 
at certain considerable intervals, as at the end of 
each year, or any other measure of time that is am- 
ple enough for some definable alteration to have 
taken place in the character or attainments. 

It is needless to say that the style should be as 
simple as possible — unless indeed the writer ac- 
counts the theme worthy of being bedecked with 
brilliants and flowers. If he idolizes his own image 
so much as to think it deserves to be enshrined in a 
frame of ^old, why, let him enshrine it. 

ShouJdit be asked what degree of explicitness 
ought to prevail through this review, in reference to 
those particulars on which conscience has fixed the 
deepest mark of condemnation ; I answer, that if a 
man writes it exclusively for his own use, he ought 
to signify both the nature of the delinquency and 
the measure of it, so far at least as to secure to his 
mind a most defined recollection of the facts, and of 
the verdict pronounced by conscience before its 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 63 

emotions were quelled by time. Such honest dis- 
tinctness is necessary, because this will be the most 
useful part of his record for reflection to dwell upon ; 
because this is the part which self-love is most will- 
ing to diminish and memory to dismiss ; because he 
may be certain that mere general terms or allusions 
of censure will but little aid the cultivation of his 
humility ; and because this license of saying so much 
about himself in the character of a biographer may 
become only a temptation to the indulgence of van- 
ity, and a protection from the shame of it, unless he 
can maintain the feeling in earnest that it is really 
at a confessional, and a severe one, that he is giving 
his account. 

But perhaps he wishes to hold this record open to 
an intimate relative or friend ; perhaps even thinks 
it might supply some interest and some lessons to 
his children. And what then ? Why then it is per- 
haps too probable that though he could readily con- 
fess some of his faults, there may have been certain 
states of his mind, and certain circumstances in his 
conduct, which he cannot easily persuade himself to 
present to such inspection. Such a difficulty of be- 
ing quite ingenuous is in every instance a cause for 
deep regret. Should not a man tremble to feel 
himself involved in a difficulty of confiding to an 
equal and a mortal, what has been all observed by 
the Supreme Witness and Judge ? And the consid- 
eration of the large proportion of men constituting 
such instances, throws a melancholy hue over the 
general human character. It has several times in 
writing this essay occurred to me what strangers men 
may be to one another, whether as to the influences 
which have determined their characters, or as to the 
less obvious parts of their conduct. What strangers 
too we may be, with persons who have any power 
and caution of concealment, to the principles which 
are at this moment prevailing in the heart. Each 
mind has an interior apartment of its own, into which 
none but himself and the Divinity can enter. In 
this retired place, the passions mingle and fluctuate 



64 ON A man's writing 

in unknown agitations. Here all the fantastic arid 
all the tragic shapes of imagination have a haunt, 
where they can neither be invaded nor descried. 
Here the surrounding human beings, while quite 
unconscious of it, are made the subjects of deliberate 
thought, and many of the designs respecting them 
revolved in silence. Here projects, convictions, 
vows, are confusedly scattered, and the records of 
past life are laid. Here in solitary state, sits Con- 
science, surrounded by her own thunders, which 
sometimes sleep, and sometimes roar, while the world 
does not know. The secrets of this apartment, could 
they have been even but very partially brought forth, 
might have been fatal to that eulogy and splendor 
■with which many a piece of biography has been ex- 
hibited by a partial and ignorant friend. If, in a 
man's own account of himself, written on the suppo- 
sition of being seen by any other person, the sub- 
stance of the secrets of this apartment is brought 
forth, he throws open the last asylum of his charac- 
ter, where it is well if there be nothing found that 
will distress and irritate his most intimate friend, 
who may thus become the ally of his conscience to 
condemn, without the leniency which even con- 
science acquires from self-love. And if it is not 
brought forth, where is the integrity or value of the 
history ; and what ingenuous man could bear to give 
a delusive assurance of his being, or having been, 
so much more worthy of applause or affection than 
conscience all the while pronounces ? It is obvious 
then that a man whose sentiments and designs, or 
the undisclosed parts of whose conduct, have been 
stained with deep delinquency, must keep his record 
most sacred to himself; unless he feels such an 
insupportable longing to relieve his heart by confid- 
ing its painful consciousness, that he can be content 
to hold the regard of his friend on the strength of 
his penitence and recovered virtue. As to the rest, 
whose memory of the past is sullied by shades if not 
by stains, they must either in the same manner retain 
this delineation for solitary use, or limit themselves 



MEMOIRS OF ItlMSELF. 65 

in writing- it, to a deliberate and strong expression 
of the measure of conscious culpabilities, and their 
effect in the g^cneral character, with a certain reserve 
and indefiniteness of explanation that shall equally 
avoid particularity and mystery ; or else, they must 
consent to meet their friends, who are likewise hu- 
man and have had their deviations, on terms of mu- 
tual ingenuous acknowledgment. In this confiden- 
tial communication, each will learn to behold the 
other's transgressions fully as much in that light in 
which they certainly are infelicities to be commiser- 
ated, as in that in which they are also faults or vices 
to be condemned ; while both will earnestly endeav- 
our to improve by their remembered errors. The 
apostle seems to encourage such a confidence, where 
he says, ' Confess your faults one to another, and 
pray one for another.' 

But 1 shall find myself in danger of becoming 
ridiculous amidst these scruples about an entire in- 
genuousness to a confideritial friend or two, while I 
fiance into the literary world, and observe the num- 
er of historians of their own lives, who magnani- 
mously throw the complete cargo, both of their van- 
ities and their vices, before the whole public. Men 
who can gaily laugh at themselves for ever having 
even pretended to goodness; men who can tell of 
having sought consolation for the sorrows of bereav- 
ed tenderness, in the recesses of debauchery ; men 
whose language betrays that they deem a spirited 
course of profligate adventures a much nobler thing 
than the stupidity of vulgar virtues, and who seem 
to claim the sentiments with which we regard an 
unfortunate hero, for the disasters into which these 
adventurers led them ; venal partisans, whose tal- 
ents would hardly have been bought, if their ven- 
om had not made up the deficiency ; profane trav- 
elling coxcombs ; players, and the makers of im- 
moral plays — all these can narrate the course of 
a contaminated life with the most ingenuous ef- 
frontery. Even courtezans, grieved at the excess of 
modesty with which the age is afflicted, have en- 



66 ON A man's writing 

deavoured to diminish the evil, by presenting them- 
selves before the public, in their narratives, in a man- 
ner very analogous to that in which the Lady God- 
iva is said to have consented, from a most generous 
inducement, to pass through the city of Coventry. 
They can gravely relate, perhaps with intermingled 
paragraphs and verses of plaintive sensibility, (a 
kind of weeds in which sentiment without principle 
apes and mocks mourning virtue,) the whole nause- 
ous detail of their transitions from proprietor to pro- 
prietor. They can tell of the precautions for meeting 
some 'illustrious personage,' accomplished in de- 
pravity even in his early youth, with the proper 
adjustment of time and circumstances to save him 
the scandal of such a meeting ; the hour when they 
crossed the river in a boat ; the arrangements about 
money ; the kindness of the personage at one time, 
his contemptuous neglect at another; and every 
thing else that can turn the compassion with which 
we deplore their first misfortunes and errors, into 
detestation of the effrontery which can even take to 
itself a merit in proclaiming the commencement, 
sequel, and all, to the wide world. 

With regard to all the classes of self-describers 
who thus think the publication of their vices neces- 
sary to crown their fame, one should wish there 
were some public special mark and brand of emphat- 
ical reprobation, to reward this tribute to public 
morals. Men that court the pillory for the pleasure 
of it, ought to receive the honour of it too, in all 
those contumelious salutations which suit the merits 
of vice grown proud of its impudence. Those that 
' glory in their shame' should, like other distinguished 
personages, ' pay a tax for being eminent.' Yet I own 
the public itself is to be consulted in this case ; for if 
the public welcomes such productions, it shows there 
are readers who feel themselves akin to the writers, 
and it would be hard to deprive congenial souls of 
the luxury of their appropriate sympathies. If such 
is the taste, it proves that a considerable portion of 
the public deserves just that kind of i?es|)eQt for i^a 



MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF. 67 

virtue, which is very significantly implied in this 
confidence of its favour. 

One is indignant at the cant pretence and title of 
Confessions, sometimes adopted by these narrators 
of their own disgrace ; as if it were to be believed 
that penitence and humility would ever excite men 
to call thousands to witness an unnecessary disclos- 
ure of what oppresses them with grief and shame. 
If they would be mortified that only a few readers 
should think it worth their while to see them thus 
performing the work of self-degradation, like the 
fetid heroes of the Dunciad in a ditch, is it because 
they would gladly incur the contempt and disgust 
of multitudes in order to serve the cause of virtue ? 
No, this title of Confessions is only a nominal defer- 
ence to morality, necessary indeed to be paid, be- 
cause mankind never forget to insist, that the name of 
virtue shall be devoutly respected, even while vice 
obtains from them that practical favour on which these 
writers place their reliance for toleration or applause. 
This slight homage being duly rendered and occa- 
sionally repeated, they trust in the character of the 
community that they shall not meet the kind of con- 
demnation, and they have no desire for the kind of 
pity, which would strictly belong to criminals ; nor is 
it any part of their penitence, to wish that society may 
become better by the odious repellency of their ex- 
ample. They are glad the age continues such, that 
even they may have claims to be praised ; and honor 
of some kind, and from some quarter, is the object to 
which they aspire, and the consequence which they 
promise themselves. Let them once be convinced, 
that they make such exhibitions under the absolute 
condition of subjecting themselves irredeemably to 
opprobrium, as in Miletus the persons infected with 
a rage for destroying themselves were by a solemn 
decree assured of being exposed, after the perpetra^ 
tion of the deed, in naked ignominy — and these 
literary suicides will be heard of no more. 

Rousseau has given a memorable example of this 
voluntary humiliation, And he has honestly assign-^. 



bo ON WRITING MEMOIRS. 

ed the degree of contrition which accompanied the 
self-inflicted penance, in the declaration, that this 
document, with all its dishonours, shall be presented 
in his justification before the Eternal Judge. If we 
could, in any case, pardon the kind of ingenuousness 
which he has displayed, it would certainly be in the 
'disclosure of a mind so wonderfully singular as his.* 
We are almost willing to have such a being pre- 
served, even to all the unsightly minutise and anom- 
alies of its form, to be placed, as an unique, in the 
moral museum of the world. 

Rousseau's impious reference to the Divine Judge, 
leads me to suggest, as I conclude, the consideration, 
that the history of each man's life, though it should 
not be written by himself or by any mortal hand, is 
thus far unerringly recorded, will one day be finished 
in truth, and one other day yet to come, will be 
brought to a final estimate. A mind accustomed to 
grave reflections is sometimes led involuntarily into 
a curiosity of awful conjecture, which asks, What are 
those very words which I should read this night, if, 
as to Belshazzar, a hand of prophetic shade were 
sent to write before me the identical sentences in 
which that final estimate will be declared ? — 

* There is indeed one case in wliich this kind of honesty wnnld 
be so signally useful to mankind, that it would deserve aitnost to 
be canonized into a virtue. If statesmen, including ministers, 
popular leaders, amiiassadors, &c. would publish, before they go 
in the triumph of virtue to the " last audit," or leave to be pub- 
lished after they are gone, each a frank exposition of motives, ca- 
bals, and nmnceuvres, it would give dignity to that blind adora- 
tion of power and rank in which mankind have always supersti- 
tiously lived, by supplying just reasons for that adoration. It 
would also give a new aspect to history ; and perhaps might tend 
to a happy exorcism of that evil spirit which has never allowed 
nations to remain at peace. 



ESSAY II. 

OJV DECJSIOJ\r OF CHARACTER. 



LETTER I. 

Examples oi" the Distress and Humiliation incident to an irresolute Mind. ...Such a 
Mind cinnot lie said to l«long- to itself.. ..Manner in which a Man of decisive 
Spii-it deliberates, and passes" into Action. ...CiTsar... .Such a Spiiit prevents the 
Frettin? away, in harassinsT Alterations of Will, of tlie animated Feelings re-, 
quired for sustaining- the Vigour of Action. ...Averts impertinent Interlerence..,. 
Acquires, if free from Harshness of Manner, an undisputed and beneficial Ascen- 
dency over Associates.. ..Its last Resource inflexible Pertinacity. ..Instance in a 
Man on a Jury. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, 

We have several times talked of this bold quality, 
and acknowledged its great importance. Without 
it, a human being, with powers at best but feeble, 
and surrounded "by innumerable things tending to 
perplex, to divert, or to oppress, their operations, is 
indeed a pitiable atom, the sport of diverse and cas- 
ual impulses. It is a poor and disgraceful thing, not 
to be able to reply, with some degree of certainty, 
to the simple questions, What will you be? What 
will you do ? 

A little acquaintance with mankind will supply 
numberless illustrations of the importance of this 
character. You will often see a person anxiously 
hesitating a long time between different, or opposite 
determinations, though impatient of the pain of such 
a state, and ashamed of its debility. A faint impulse 
of preference alternates toward the one, and toward 



70 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

the other ; and the mind, while thus held in a trem- 
bling balance, is vexed that it cannot get some new 
thought, or feeling, or motive, that it has not more 
sense, more resolution, more of any thing that would 
save it from envying even the decisive instinct of 
brutes. It wishes that any circumstance might hap- 
pen, or any person might appear, that could deliver 
it from the miserable suspense. 

In many instances, when a determination is adopt- 
ed, it is frustrated by this indecision. A man, for 
example, resolves to make a journey to-morrow, 
which he is not under an absolute necessity to make, 
but the inducements appear, this evening, so strong, 
that he does not think it possible he can hesitate in 
the morning. In the morning, however, these in- 
ducements have unaccountably lost much of their 
force. Like the sun that is rising at the same time, 
they appear dim through a mist ; and the sky lowers, 
or he fancies that it lowers ; recollections of toils 
and fatigues ill repaid in past expeditions rise and 
pass into anticipation ; and he lingers, uncertain, 
till an advanced hour determines the question for 
him, by the certainty that it is now too late to go. 

Perhaps a man has conclusive reasons for wishing 
to remove to another place of residence. But when 
he is going to take the first actual step towards ex- 
ecuting his purpose, he is met by a new train of 
ideas, presenting the possible, and magnifying the 
unquestionable, disadvantages and uncertainties of 
a new situation ; awakening the natural reluctance 
to quit a place to which habit has accommodated his 
feelings, and which has grown warm to him, if I 
may so express it, by his having been in it so long ; 
giving new strength to his affection for the friends 
whom he must leave, and so detaining him still lin- 
gering, long after his serious judgment may have 
dictated to him to be gone. 

A man may think of some desirable alteration in 
his plan of life ; perhaps in the arrangements of his 
family, or in the mode of his intercourse with society. 
— Would it be a good thing? He thinks it would 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 71 

be a good thing. It certainly would be a very good 
thing. He wishes it were done. He will attempt it 
almost immediately. The following day, he doubts 
whether it would be quite prudent. Many things 
are to be considered. May there not be in the 
change some evil of which he is not aware ? Is this 
a proper time ? What will the people say ? — And 
thus, though he does not formally renounce his pur- 
pose, he shrinks out of it, with a wish that he could 
l3e fully satisfied of the propriety of renouncing it. 
Perhaps he wishes that the thought had never oc- 
curred to him, since it has diminished his self-com- 
placency, without promoting his virtue. But the 
next day, his conviction of the wisdom and advantage 
of such a reform comes again with great force. 
Then, Is it so practicable as I was at first willing to 
imagine ? Why not ? Other men have done much 
greater thingfs ; a resolute mind is omnipotent ; dif- 
ficulty is a stimulus and a triumph to a strong spirit; 
' the joys of conquest are the joys of man.' What 
need* I care about people's opinion ? It shall be 
done. He makes the first attempt. But some un- 
expected obstacle presents itself; he feels the awk- 
wardness of attempting an unaccustomed manner of 
acting ; the questions or the ridicule of his friends 
disconcert him ; his ardour abates and expires. He 
again begins to question, whether it be wise, whether 
it be necessary, whether it be possible ; and at last, 
surrenders his purpose, to be perhaps resumed when 
the same feelings return, and to be in the same 
manner again relinquished. 

While animated by some magnanimous sentiments 
which he has heard or read, or while musing on some 
great example, a man may conceive the design, and 
partly sketch the plan, of a generous enterprise ; 
and his imagination revels in the felicity that would 
follow, to others and to himself, from its accomplish- 
ment. The splendid representation always centres 
in himself, as the hero that is to realize it. 

Yet a certain consciousness in his mind doubtfully 
asks, Is this any thing more than a dream ; or am I 



72 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

really destined to achieve such an enterprise ? Des- 
tined ! — and why are not this conviction of its ex- 
cellence, this conscious duty of performing- the no- 
blest things that are possible, and this passionate 
ardour, enough to secure that 1 shall effect it ? He 
feels indignant at that failing part of his nature which 
puts him so far below his own conceptions, and be- 
low the examples which he is admiring ; and this 
feeling assists him to resolve, that he will undertake 
this enterprise, that he certainly will, though the 
Alps or the Ocean lie between him and the object. 
Again his ardour slackens ; distrustful of himself, 
he wishes to know how the design would appear to 
other minds ; and when he speaks of it to his asso- 
ciates, one of them wonders, another laughs, and 
another frowns. His pride attempts, while with 
them, a manful defence ; but his mind is gradually 
descending toward their level, he becomes ashamed 
to entertain a visionary project, which therefore, like 
a rejected friend, desists from intruding on him or 
following him, and he subsides, at last, into what he 
labours to believe a man too rational for the schemes 
of ill-calculating enthusiasm. And it were strange 
if the effort to make out this favourable estimate of 
himself did not succeed, while it is so much more 
pleasant to attribute one's defect of enterprise to 
wisdom, which on maturer thought disapproves of it, 
than to imbecility, which shrinks from it. 

A person of undecisive character wonders how all 
the embarrassments in the world happened to meet 
exactly in Ms way, to place him just in that one sit- 
uation for which he is peculiarly unadapted, and in 
which he is also willing to think no other man could 
have acted with much facility or confidence. Inca- 
pable of setting up a firm purpose on the basis of 
things as they are, he is often employed in vain 
speculations on some different supposable state of 
things, which would have saved him from all this 
perplexity and irresolution. He thinks what a de- 
termined course he could have pursued, if his talents, 
his health, his age, had been different ; if he had 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTEK. 73 

been acquainted with some one person sooner ; if 
his friends were, in this or the other point, different 
from what they are ; or if fortune had showered her 
favours on him. And he gives himself as much 
license to complain, as if all these advantages had 
been among the rights of his nativity, but refused, 
by a malignant or capricious fate, to his life. Thus 
he is occupied — instead of catching with a vigilant 
eye, and seizing with a strong hand, all the possibil- 
ilities of his actual situation. 

A man without decision can never be said to be- 
long to himself; since, if he dared to assert that he 
did, the puny force of some cause, about as powerful, 
you would have supposed, as a spider, may make a 
capture of the hapless boaster the very next moment, 
and triumphantly exhibit the futility of the deter- 
minations by which he was to have proved the inde- 
pendence of his understanding and his will. He 
belongs to whatever can seize him ; and innumerable 
things do actually verify their claim on him, and 
arrest him as he tries to go along ; as twigs and 
chips, floating near the edge of a river, are inter- 
cepted by every weed, and whirled in every little 
eddy. Having concluded on a design, he may pledge 
himself to accomplish it, — if the hundred diversities 
of feeling which may come within the week, will let 
him. As his character precludes all foresight of his 
conduct, he may sit and wonder what form and 
direction his views and actions are destined to take 
to-morrow ; as a farmer has often to acknowledge 
that next day's proceedings are at the disposal of its 
winds and clouds. 

This man's opinions and determinations always 
depend very much on other human beings ; and 
what chance for consistency and stability, while the 
persons with whom he may converse, or transact, 
are so various ? This very evening, he may talk 
with a man whose sentiments will melt away the 
present form and outline of his purposes, however 
firm and defined he may have fancied them to be. 
A succession of persons whose faculties were strong- 
7 



74 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

er than his own, might, in spite of his irresolute re- 
action, take him and dispose of him as they pleased. 
An infirm character practically confesses itself made 
for subjection, and the man so constituted passes, 
like a slave, from owner to owner. Sometimes in^ 
deed it happens, that a person of this sort falls into the 
train, and under the permanent ascendency, of some 
one stronger character, which thus hecomes through 
life the oracle and guide, and gives the inferior a 
steady will and plan. This, when the leading char- 
acter is virtuous, is a fortunate relief to the feeling, 
and an advantageous point gained to the utility, of 
the subordinate appended mind. 

It is inevitable that the regulation of every man's 
plan must greatly depend on the course of events, 
which come in an order not to be foreseen or pre- 
vented. But in accommodating the plans of conduct 
to the train of events, the difference between two 
men may be no less than that, in the one instance, 
the man is subservient to the events, and in the other, 
the events are made subservient to the man. Some 
men seem to have been taken along by a succession 
of events, and, as it were, handed forward in quiet 
passiveness from one to another ; without any deter- 
mined principle in their own characters, by which 
they could constrain those events to serve a design 
formed antecedently to them, or apparently in defi- 
ance of them. The events seized them as a neutral 
material, not they the events. Others, advancing 
through life with an internal invincible determina- 
tion of mind, have. seemed to make the train of cir- 
cumstances, whatever they were, conduce as much 
to their chief design as if they had taken place on 
purpose. It is wonderful how even the apparent 
casualties of life seem to bow to a spirit that will 
not bow to them, and yield to assist a design, after 
having in vain attempted to frustrate it. 

You may have seen such examples, though they 
are comparatively not numerous. You may have 
seen a man of this strong character in a state of 
indecision concerning some affair^ ih which it was 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 75 

requisite for him to determine, because it was re- 
quisite for him to act. But, in this case, his manner 
would assure you that he would not remain long 
undecided ; you would wonder if you found him 
still at a los's the next day. If he explained his 
thoughts, you would perceive that their clear process, 
evidently at each effort approaching nearer to the 
result, must certainly reach it ere long. The delib- 
eration of such a mind is a very different thing from 
the fluctuation of the other. To know how to obtain 
a determination, is one of the first symptoms of a 
rationaHy decisive character. 

When the decision was formed, and the purpose 
fixed, you would feel an entire assurance that some- 
thing would absolutely be done. It is characteristic 
of such a mind, to think for effect ; and the pleasure 
of escaping from temporary doubt gives an additional 
impulse to the force with which it is carried into 
action. Such a man will not re-examine his conclu- 
sions with endless repetition, and he will not be 
delayed long by consulting other persons, after he 
has ceased to consult himself He cannot bear to 
sit still among unexecuted decisions and unattempt- 
ed projects. We wait to hear of his achievements, 
and are confident we shall not wait long. The 
possibility or the means may not be obvious to us, 
but we know that every thing will be attempted, 
and that such a mind is like a river, which, in what- 
ever manner it is obstructed, will make its way 
somewhere. It must have cost Csesar many anxious 
hours of deliberation, before he decided to pass the 
Rubicon ; but it is probable he suffered but few to 
elapse after his decision, before he did pass it. And 
any one of his friends, who should have been appris- 
ed of this determination, and understood his charac- 
ter, would have smiled contemptuously to hear it 
insinuated that though Cassar had resolved, CfEsar 
would not dare ; or that though he might cross the 
Rubicon, whose opposite bank presented to him no 
hostile legions, he might come to other rivers, which 
he would not cross; or that either rivers, or any 



76 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

other obstacle, would deter him from prosecuting' 
the determination from this ominous commencement 
to its very last consequence. 

One signal advantage possessed by a mind of this 
character is, that its passions are not wasted. The 
whole measure of passion of which any mind, with 
important transactions before it, is capable, is not 
more than enough to supply interest and energy to 
its practical exertions ; and therefore as little as 
possible of this sacred fire should be expended in a 
way that does not augment the force of action. But 
nothing can less contribute to vigour of action, than 
protracted anxious fluctuation, intermixed with res- 
olutions decided and revoked, while yet nothing 
causes a greater expense of feeling. The heart is 
fretted and exhausted by being subjected to an al- 
ternation of contrary excitements, with the ultimate 
mortifying consciousness of their contributing to no 
end. The long-wavering deliberation, whether to 
perform some bold action of difficult virtue, has often 
cost more to feeling than the action itself, or a series 
of such actions, would have cost ; with the great 
disadvantage too of being relieved by none of that 
invigoration, which, to the man in action, would have 
sprung from the spirit of the action itself, and have 
renovated the ardour which it was expending. A 
person of decisive character, by consuming as little 
passion as possible in dubious musings and abortive 
resolutions, can secure its utmost value and use, by 
throwing it all into effective operation. 

Another advantage of this character, is, that it 
exempts from a great deal of interference and per- 
secution, to which an irresolute man is subjected. 
Weakness, in every form, tempts arrogance ; and a 
man may be allowed to wish for a kind of character 
with which stupidity and impertinence may not make 
so free. When a firm decisive spirit is recognised, 
it is curious to see how the space clears around a 
man, and leaves him room and freedom. The dis- 
position to interrogate, dictate, or banter, preserves 
a respectful and politic distance, judging it not un- 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 77 

wise to keep the peace with a person of so much 
energy. A conviction that he understands and that 
he wills with extraordinary force, silences the con- 
ceit that intended to perplex or instruct him, and 
intimidates the malice that was disposed to attack 
him. There is a feeling, as in respect to Fate, that 
the decrees of so inflexible a spirit must be right, or 
that, at least, they will be accomplished. 

But not only will he secure the freedom of acting 
for himself, he will obtain also by degrees the coin- 
cidence of those in whose company he is to transact 
the business of life. If the manners of such a man 
are free from arrogance, and he can qualify his firm- 
ness with a moderate degree of insinuation ; and if 
his measures have partly lost the appearance of be- 
ing the dictates of his will, under the Avider and softer 
sanction of some experience that they are reasona- 
ble ; both competition and fear will be laid to sleep, 
and his will may acquire an unresisted ascendency 
over many who will be pleased to fail into the me- 
chanism of a system, which they find makes them 
more successful and happy than they could have 
been amidst the anxiety of adjusting plans and ex- 
pedients of their own, and the consequences of often 
adjusting them ill. I have known several parents, 
both fathers and mothers, whose management of 
their families has answered this description ; and has 
displayed a striking example of the facile compla- 
cency with which a number of persons, of different 
ages and dispositions, will yield to the decisions of 
a firm mind, acting on an equitable and enlightened 
system. 

The last resource of this character, is, hard inflex- 
ible pertinacity, on which it may be allowed to rest 
its strength, after finding it can be effectual in none 
of its milder forms. I remember admiring an instance 
of this kind, in a firm, sagacious and very estimable 
old man, whom I well knew, and who is now dead. 
Being on a jury, in a trial of life and death, he was 
completely satisfied of the innocence of the prisoner; 
the other eleven were of the opposite opinion. But 



78 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

he was resolved the man should not be condemned; 
and as the first effort for preventing it, very properly 
made application to the minds of his associates, 
spending several hours in labouring to convince 
them. But he found he made no impression, while 
he was exhausting the strength which was to be re- 
served for another mode of operation. He then 
calmly told them, it should now be a trial who could 
endure confinement and famine the longest, and that 
they might he quite assured he would sooner die 
than release them at the expense of the prisoner's 
life. In this situation they spent about twenty-four 
hours ; when at length all acceded to his verdict of 
acquittal. 

It is not necessary to amplify on the indispensable 
importance of this quality, in order to the accom- 
plishment of any thing eminently good. We in- 
stantly see, that every path to signal excellence is 
so obstructed and beset, that none but a spirit so 
qualified can pass. But it is time to examine what 
^XQ the elements which compose the character, 



LETTER II. 

Bri&f Inquiry into the Constituents of this cc>mmancling duality.. ..Corporeal Cob.» 
• stitLition.. ..Possibility, nevertheless, of a firm Mind in a feeble Body. ...Confidence 
in a Man's own Judgment.. ..This is an uncommon Distinction. ...Picture of a 
Man who wants it.. ..This Confidence distinguislied from Obstinacy... .Partly 
founded on Experience. ...Takes a high Tone of Independence in devising- 
Scliemes.... Distressing Dilemmas, 

Perhaps the best mode would be to bring into 
our thoughts, in succession, the most remarkable 
examples of this character that we have known in 
real life, or that we have read of in history or even 
in fiction, and attentively to observe, in their con- 
versations, manners, and actions, what principles 



ON DECISION OF CHAPcACTEH. 79 

appear to produce, or to constitute, this commanding 
distinction. You will easily pursue this investigation 
yourself. I lately made a partial attempt, and shall 
offer you a number of sug-gestions. 

As a previous observation, it is beyond all doubt 
that very much depends on the constitution of the 
body. It would be for physiologists to explain, if it 
were explicable, the manner in which corporeal or^ 
g:anization affects the mind ; I only assume it as a 
fact, that there is in the material construction of 
some persons, much more than of others, some qual* 
ity which augments, if it does not create, both the 
stability of their resolution, and the energy of their 
active tendencies. There is something that, like the 
ligatures which one class of the Olympic combatants 
bound on their hands and wrists, braces round, if I 
may so describe it, and compresses the powers of 
the mind, giving them a steady, forcible spring' and 
re-action, which they would presently lose it they 
could be transferred into a constitution of soft, yield-^ 
ing, treacherous debility. The action of strong 
character seems to demand something firm in its 
corporeal basis, as massive engines require, for their 
weight and for their working, to be fixed on a solid 
foundation. Accordingly I believe it would be found, 
that a majority of the persons most remarkable for 
decisive character, have possessed great constitu- 
tional firmness. I do not mean an exemption from 
disease and pain, nor any certain measure of me- 
chanical strength, but a tone of vigour, the opposite 
to lassitude, and adapted to great exertion and en- 
durance. This is clearly evinced in respect to many 
of them, by the prodigious labours and deprivations 
which they have borne in prosecuting their designs. 
The physical nature has seemed a proud ally of the 
moral one, and with a hardness that would never 
shrink, has sustained the energy that could never 
remit. 

A view of the disparities between the different 
races of animals inferior to man, will show the effect 
of organization on disposition. Compare, for in- 



80 ON DECISION or CHARACTER. 

stance, a lion with the common beasts of our fields, 
many of them composed of a larger bulk of animated 
substance. What a vast superiority of courage, im- 
petuous movement, and determined action ; and we 
attribute this difference to some great dissimilarity 
of modification in the composition of the animated 
material. Now it is probable that a difference sopie- 
what analogous subsists between some human bodies 
and others, and that this is no small part of the cause 
of the striking inequalities in respect to decisive 
character. A very decisive man has probably more 
of the physical quality of a tion in his composition 
than other men. 

It is observable that women in general have less 
inflexibility of character than men ; and though 
many moral influences contribute to this difference, 
the principal cause may probably be something less 
firm in the corporeal texture. Now that physical 
quality, whatever it is, from the existence of a smaller 
measure of which in the constitution of the frame, 
women have less firmness than men, may be pos- 
sessed by one man more than by men in general, m 
a greater degree of difference than that by which 
men in general exceed women. 

If there have been found some resolute spirits 
powerfully asserting themselves in feeble vehicles, 
it is so much the better ; since this would authorize 
a hope, that if all the other grand requisites can be 
combined, they may form a strong character, in spite 
of the counteraction of an unadapted constitution. 
And on the other hand, no constitutional hardness 
will form the true character, without those grand 
principles ; though it may produce that false and 
contemptible kind of decision which we term obsti- 
nacy ; a stubbornness of temper, which can assign 
no reasons but mere will, for a constancy which acts 
in the nature of dead weight rather than of strength ; 
resembling less the re-action of a powerful spring, 
than the gravitation of a big stone. 

The first prominent mental characteristic of the 
person whom I describe, is, a complete confideBee 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 81 

in his own judgrnent. It will perhaps be said, that 
this is not so uncommon a qualification. I however 
think it is uncommon. It is indeed obvious enough, 
that almost all men have a flattering estimate of 
their own understanding, and that so long as this 
understanding has no harder task than to form opin- 
ions which are not to be tried in action, they have a 
most self-complacent assurance of being right. This 
assurance extends to the judgments which they pass 
on the proceedings of others. But let them be 
brought into the necessity of adopting actual meas- 
ures in an untried proceeding, where, unassisted by 
any previous example or practice, they are reduced 
to depend on the resources of pure judgment alone, 
and you will see, in many cases, this confidence of 
opinion vanish away. The mind seems all at once 
placed in a misty vacuity, where it reaches round on 
all sides, but can find nothing to take hold of Or 
if not lost in vacuity, it is overwhelmed by con- 
fusion ; and feels as if its faculties were annihilated 
as soon as it begins to think of schemes and calcular 
tions among the possibilities, chances, and hazards, 
which overspread a wide, untrodden field ; and this 
conscious imbecility becomes severe distress, when 
it is believed that consequences, of serious or un- 
known good or evil, are depending on the decisions 
which are to be formed amidst so "much uncertainty, 
The thought painfully recurs at each step and turn, 
I may be right, but it is more probable I am wrong, 
It is like the case of a rustic walking in London, 
who, having no certain direction through the vast 
confusion of streets to the place where he wishes tp 
be, advances, and hesitates, and turns, and inquires, 
and becomes, at each corner, still more inextricably 
perplexed.* A man in this situation feels he shall 

* ' Why does not the man call a hackney-coach 1' a gay reader, 
I am aware, will say of a person so bemazed in a great town. So 
he might, certainly ; and the gay reader and I have only to de- 
plore that there is no parallel convenience for the assistance of 
perplexed understandings. -..<>. 



82 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

be very unfortunate if he cannot accomplish more 
than he can understand. Is not this frequently, 
when brought to the practical test, the state of a 
mind not much disposed, in general, to undervalue 
its own judgment? 

In cases where judgment is not so completely he- 
"wildered, you will yet perceive a great practical 
distrust of it. A man has perhaps advanced a con- 
siderable way towards a decision, but then lingers 
at a small distance from it, till necessity, with a 
stronger hand than conviction, impels him upon it. 
He cannot see the whole length of the question, 
and suspects the part beyond his sight to be the most 
important, because it is beyond. He fears that cer- 
tain possible consequences, if they should follow, 
would cause him to reproach himself for his present 
determination. He wonders how this or the other 
person would have acted in the same circumstances ; 
eagerly catches at any thing like a respectable pre- 
cedent; and looks anxiously round to know what 
each person thinks on the subject ; while the various 
and opposite opinions to which he listens, perhaps 
only serve to confound his perception of the track of 
thought bv which he had hoped to reach his conclu- 
sion. Even when that conclusion is obtained, there 
are not many minds that might not be brought a few 
degrees back into dubious hesitation, by a man of 
1-espected understanding saying, in a confident tone, 
Your plan is injudicious ; your selection is unfortu- 
nate ; the event will disappoint you. 

It cannot be supposed tliat I am maintaining such 
an absurdity as that a man's complete reliance on 
his own judgment is necessarily a proof of that judg- 
ment being correct and strong. Intense stuyjidity 
may be in this point the rival of clear-sighted wis- 
dom. I had once some knowledge of a person, whom 
no mortal, not even Cromwell, could have excelled 
in the article of confidence in his judgment, and 
consequent inflexibility of conduct; while at the 
same time his successive schemes were ill-judged 



ON DECISIOxN OF CHARACTER. 83 

to a degfree that made his disappointments ridiculous 
rather than pitiable. He was not an example of that 
simple obstinacy which I have mentioned before ; 
for he considered his measures, and did not Avantfor 
reasons which satisfied himself beyond a doubt of 
their being- most judicious. This confidence of 
opinion may be possessed by a person in whom it 
will be contemptible or mischievous ; but its proper 
place is in a very different character, and without it 
there can be no dignified actors in human affairs. 

If, after observing how foolish this confidence 
appears as a feature in a weak character, it be in- 
quired what it is in a justly decisive person's manner 
of thinking, which authorizes him in this firm assur- 
ance that "his view of the concerns before him is 
comprehensive and accurate ; he may, in answer, 
justify his confidence upon such grounds as these: 
that he is conscious that objects are presented to his 
mind with an exceedingly distinct and perspicuous 
aspect, not like the shapes of moon-light, or like 
Ossian's ghosts, dim forms of uncircumscribed shade ; 
that he sees the different parts of the subject in an 
arranged order, not in dispersed fragments; that in 
each deliberation the main object keeps its clear 
pre-eminence, and he perceives the bearings which 
the subordinate and conducive ones have on it; that 
perhaps several dissimilar trains of thought lead him 
to the same conclusion ; and that he finds his judg- 
ment does not vary according to the moods of his 
feelings. 

It rnay be presumed that a high degree of this 
character is not attained without a considerable 
measure of that kind of certainty, with respect to the 
relations of things, which can be acquired only from 
experience and observation ; though an extreme 
vigilance in the exercise of observation, and a strong 
and strongly exerted poAver of generalizing on ex- 
perience,"may have made a comparatively short time 
enough to supply a large share of the Avisdom deriv- 
able from these sources ; so that a man may be rich 



84 0.\ DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

in the benefits of experience, and therefore may 
have all the decision of judgment legitimately found- 
ed on that accomplishment, long before he is old. 
This experimental knowledge he will be able to 
apply in a direct and immediate manner, and without 
refining it into general principles, to some situations 
of affairs, so as to anticipate the consequences of 
certain actions in those situations as confidently and 
rationally as the kind of fruit to be produced by a 
given kind of tree. Thus far the facts of his expe- 
rience will serve him as precedents. At the next 
step, he will be able to apply this knowledge, now 
converted into general principles, to a multitude of 
cases bearing but a partial resemblance to any thing 
he has actually witnessed. And then, in looking 
forward to the possible occurrence of altogether new 
combinations of circumstances, he can trust to the re- 
sources which he is persuaded his intellect will open 
to him, or is humbly confident, if he is a devout man, 
that the Supreme Intelligence Avill not suffer to be 
wanting to him, when the occasion arrives. In pro- 
portion as his views include, at all events, more cer- 
tainties than those of other men, he is less fearful 
of contingencies. And if, in the course of executing 
his design, unexpected disastrous events should be- 
fal, but which are not owing to any thing wrong in 
the plan and principles of that design, but to foreign 
causes ; it will be characteristic of a strong mind to 
attribute these events discriminatively to their own 
causes, and not to the plan, which, therefore, instead 
of being disliked and relinquished, will be still as 
much approved as before, and the man will proceed 
calmly to the sequel of it without any change of 
arrangement; — unless indeed these sinister events 
should be such as to alter the whole state of things 
to which the plan was correctly adapted, and so to 
create a necessity on this account for an entirely 
new one to be formed. 

Without absolutely despising the understandings 
of other men, he will perceive their dimensions 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 85 

compared with his own, which will preserve its inde- 
pendence through every communication and en- 
counter. It is however a part of this very independ- 
ence, that he will hold himself at liberty to alter his 
opinion, if the information which may be commu- 
nicated to him, shall give sufficient reason. And as 
no one is so sensible of the importance of a complete 
acquaintance with a subject as the man who is always 
endeavouring to think conclusively, he will listen 
with tfie utmost attention to the information^ which 
may be received sometimes from persons for whose 
judgment he has no great respect. The information 
which they may afford to him is not at all the less 
valuable for the circumstance, that his practical in- 
ferences from it may be quite different from theirs. 
Counsel will in general have only so much weight 
with him as it supplies knowledge which may assist 
his judgment; he will yield nothing to it as author- 
ity ; but he may hear it with more candor and good 
temper, from being conscious of this independence 
of his judgment, than the man who is afraid lest the 
first person that begins to persuade him, should 
confound his determination. He feels it entirely a 
work of his own to deliberate and to resolve, amidst 
all the advice which may be attempting to control 
him. If, with an assurance of his intellect being of 
the highest order, he also holds a commanding sta- 
tion, he will feel it gratuitous to consult with any 
one, excepting merely to receive statements of facts. 
This appears to be exemplified in the man, who has 
lately shown the nations of Europe how large a por- 
tion of the world may, when Heaven permits, be at 
the mercy of the solitary workings of an individual 
mind. 

The strongest trial of this determined style of 
judgment is in those cases of urgency where some^ 
thing must immediately be done, and where the 
consequences of deciding right or wrong are of 
^reat importance ; as in the office of a medical man 
m treating a patient whose situation, while it rendena 



OO ON DECISION OF CHARACTEn. 

some hazardous means indispensable, also renders 
it extremely doubtful which ought to be selected. 
A still stronger illustration is the case of a general, 
who is compelled, in the very instant, to make dis- 
positions on which the event of a battle, the lives of 
thousands of his men, or perhaps almost the fate of 
a nation, may depend. He may even be reduced to 
an alternative which appears equally dreadful on 
both sides. Such a dilemma is described in Denon's 
account of one of the sanguinary conflicts between 
the French and Mamelukes, as having for a while 
held General Desaix, though a very decisive com- 
mander, in a state of anguish. 



LETTER III. 

Energy of Peelinsr lis necessary as Confidence of Opinion. ...Conduct tliat resniu 
from their (.!ombiiiation....E:rect and Value of a Ruliiio' Passion, .. .Greiit Deci-ion 
of Char.^cter invests ei'eii wicked Being's witli soii:e;hing wliich we are tenipterl 
to admire.. ..Satan....Z.iii^a.... A Spanish A5Si\ssin....Reriiar]ial)le Kxamrle ot this 
Gtuality in a man who vVas a Prodicral and heciune poor, but turned Miser and 
became ricli.... Howard., ..VVhilefield.... Christian Missionaries. 

This indispensable basis, confidence of opinion, 
is however not enough to constitute the character 
in question. For many persons, who have been 
conscious and proud of a much stronger grasp of 
thought than ordinary men, and have held the most 
decided opinions on important things to be done, 
have yet exhibited, in the listlessness or inconstancy 
of their actions, a contrast and a disgrace to the op- 
erations of their understandings. For want of some 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 87 

cogent feelinor impelling them to carry every internal 
decision into action, tliey liave been still left where 
they were ; and a dignified judgment has been seen 
in the hapless plight of having no effective forces to 
execute its decrees. 

It is evident then, (and I perceive I have partly 
anticipated this article in the first letter,) that another 
essential principle of the character is, a total inca- 
pability of surrendering to indifference or delay the 
serious determinations of the mind. A strenuous 
will must accompany the conclusions of thought, 
and constantly incite the utmost efforts for their 
practical accomplishment. The intellect must be 
invested, if I miy so describe it, with a glowing 
atmosphere of passion, under the influence of which, 
the cold dictates of reason take fire, and spring into 
active powers. 

Revert once more in your thoughts to the persons 
most remarkably distinguished by this decision. You 
will perceive, that instead of allowing themselves to 
sit down delighted after the labour of successful 
thinking, as if they had completed some great thing, 
they regard this labour but as a circumstance of 
preparation, and the conclusions resulting from it as 
of no more value, till applied to the greater labour 
which is to follow, than the entombed lamps of the 
Rosicrucians. They are not disposed to be con-- 
tent in a region of mere ideas, while they ought 
to be advancing into the field of corresponding re- 
alities ; they retire to that region sometimes, as 
ambitious adventurers anciently went to Delphi, to 
consult, but not to reside. You will therefore find 
them almost uniformly in determined pursuit of some 
object, on which they fix a keen and steady look, 
and which they never lose sight of, while they follow 
it through the confused multitude of other things. 

A person actuated by such a spirit, seems by his 
manner to say. Do you think that I would not disdain 
to adopt a purpose which I would not devote my 
utmost force to effect ; or that having thus devoted 



00 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

my exertions, I will intermit or withdraw them, 
through indolence, debility, or caprice ; or that I 
will surrender my object to any interference except 
the uncontrollable dispensations of Providence ? No, 

1 am linked to my determination with iron bands ; it 
clings to me with the tenacity of my fate, of the ac- 
complishment of which, the frustration of my purpose 
may indeed be doomed as a part, but is doomed so 
onh^ through calamity or death. 

This display of systematic energy seems to indi- 
cate a constitution of mind in which the passions are 
commensurate with the intellectual part, and at the 
same time hold an inseparable correspondence with 
it, like the faithful sympathy of the tides with the 
phases of the moon. There is such an equality and 
connexion, that subjects of the decisions of judgment 
become proportionally and of course the objects of 
passion. When the judgment decides with a very 
strong preference, that same strength of preference, 
actuating also the passions, devotes them with en- 
ergy to the object, so long as it is thus approved ; 
and this will produce sucn a conduct as I have de- 
scribed. When therefore a firm, self^confiding, and 
unaltering judgment fails to make a decisive char- 
acter, it is evident either that the passions in that 
mind are too languid to be capable of a strong and 
unremitting excitement, which defect makes an in- 
dolent or irresolute man ; or that they perversely 
sometinies coincide with judgment and sometimes 
clash with it, which makes an inconsistent or versa- 
tile man. 

There is no man so irresolute as not to act with 
determination in many single cases, where the mo- 
tive is powerful and simple, and where there is no 
need of plan and perseverance ; but this gives no 
claim to the term character^ which expresses the 
habitual tenour of a man's active being. The char- 
acter may be displayed in the successive unconnect- 
ed undertakings, which are each of limited extent, 
and end with the attainment of their particular ob- 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 89 

jects. But it is seen to the greatest advantage in 
those grand schemes of action, Avhich have no neces- 
sary point of conclusion, which continue on through 
successive years, and extend even to that dark period 
when the agent himself is withdrawn from human 
sight. 

I have repeatedly remarked to you, in conversa- 
tion, the effect of what has been called a Ruling 
Passion. When its object is noble, and an enlight- 
ened understanding directs its movements, it appears 
to me a great felicity ; but whether its object be 
noble or not, it infallibly creates, where it exists in 
great force, that active, ardent constancy, which I 
describe as a capital feature of the decisive character. 
The Subject of such a commanding passion wonders, 
if indeed he were at leisure to wonder, at the persons 
who pretend to attach importance to an object which 
they make none but the most languid efforts to se- 
cure. The utmost powers of the man are constrained 
into the service of the favourite Cause by thi^ pas- 
sion, which sweeps away, as it advances, all the 
trivial objections and little opposing motives, and 
seems almost to open a way through impossibilities. 
This spirit comes on him in the morning as soon as 
he recovers his consciousness, and commands and 
impels him through the day, with a power from which 
he could not emancipate himself if he would. When 
the force of habit is added, the determination be- 
comes invincible, and seems to assume rank with 
the great laws of nature, making it nearly as certain 
that such a man will persist in his course as that in 
the morning the sun will rise. 

A persisting, untameable efficacy of soul gives a 
seductive and pernicious dignity even to a character 
and a course Avhich every moral principle forbids us 
to approve. Often in the narrations of history and 
fiction, an agent of the most dreadful designs com- 
pels a sentiment of deep respect for the unconquer- 
able mind displayed in their execution. While we 
shudder at his activity, we say with regret, mingled 



90 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

with an admiration which borders on partiality, 
What a noble being this would have been, if good- 
ness had been his destiny ! The partiality is evinced 
in the very selection of terms, by which we show 
that we are tempted to refer his atrocity rather to 
his destiny than to his choice. I wonder whether 
an emotion like this, has not been experienced by 
each reader of Paradise l^ost, relative to the Leader 
of the infernal spirits ; a proof, if such were the fact, 
that a very serious error has been committed by the 
greatest poet. In some of the high examples of 
ambition, we almost revere the force of mind which 
impelled them forward through the longest series of 
action, superior to doubt and fluctuation, and dis- 
dainful of ease, of pleasures, of opposition, and of 
danger. We bow to the ambitious spirit which 
reached the true sublime in the reply of Pompey to 
his friends, who dissuaded him from hazarding his 
life on a tempestuous sea in order to be at Rome oii 
an important occasion : ' It is necessary for me to 
go ; it is not necessary for me to live.' 

Revenge has produced wonderful examples of this 
unremitting constancy to a purpose. Zanga is a 
well-suppo7-ted illustration. And you may have read 
a real instance of a Spaniard, who, being injured by 
another inhabitant of the same town, resolved to 
destroy him : the other was apprised of this, and 
removed with the utmost secrecy, as he thought, to 
another town at a considerable distance, where how- 
ever he had not been more than a day or two, before 
he found that his enemy was arrived there. He 
removed in the same manner to several parts of the 
kingdom, remote from each other ; but in every place 
quickly perceived that his deadly pursuer was near 
him. At l.st he went to South America, where he 
had enjoyed his security but a very short time, be- 
fore his unrelenting enemy came up with him, and 
accomplished his purpose. 

You may recollect the mention, in one of our con- 
versations, of a young man who wasted, in two or 



Oi\ DECISIOi^ OF CHARACTER. 91 

three years, a large patrimony in profligate revels 
with a number of worthless associates who called 
themselves his friends, and who, when his last means 
were exhausted, treated him of course with neglect 
or contempt. Reduced to absolute want, he one day 
went out of the house with an intention to put an 
end to his life ; but wandering a while almost un- 
consciously, he came to the brow of an eminence 
which overlooked what were lately his estates. Here 
he sat down, and remained fixed in thought a num- 
ber of hours, at the end of which he sprang from the 
ground with a vehement, exulting emotion. He had 
formed his resolution, which was, that all these es- 
tates should be his again ; he had formed his plan 
too, which he instantly began to execute. He walk- 
ed hastily forward, determined to seize the very first 
opportunity, of however humble a kind, to gain any 
money, though it were ever so despicable a trifle, 
and resolved absolutely not to spend, if he could 
help it, a farthing of whatever he might obtain. The 
first thing that drew his attention was a heap of coala 
shot out of carts on the pavement before a house. 
He offered himself to shovel or wheel them into the 
place where they were to be laid, and was employed. 
He received a few pence for the labour; and then, 
in pursuance of the saving part of his plan, requested 
some small gratuity of meat and drink, which was 
given him. He then looked out for the next thing 
that misrht chance to off^jr; and went, with indefat- 
igable industry, through a succession of servile em- 
ployments, in different places, of longer and shorter 
duration, still scrupulously avoiding, as far as possi- 
ble, the expense of a penny. He promptly seized 
everi) opportunity which could advance his design, 
without regarding the meanness of occupation or 
appearance. By this method he had gained after a 
considerable time, money enough to purchase in or- 
der to sell again, a few cattle, of which he had taken 
pains to understand the value. He speedily but 
cautiously turned his first gains into second advan- 



92 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

tages ; retained without a single deviation his ex- 
treme parsimony; and thus advanced by degrees 
into larger transactions and incipient wealth. I did 
not hear, or have forgotten, the continued course of 
his life ; but the final result was, that he more than 
recovered his lost possessions, and died an inveterate 
miser, worth 60,000^. I have always recollect ;d this 
as a signal instance, though in 4n unfortunate and 
ignoble direction, of decisive character, and of the 
extraordinary effect, which, according to general 
laws, belongs to the strongest form of such a char- 
acter. 

But not less decision has been displayed by men 
of virtue. In this distinction no man ever exceeded, 
for instance, or ever will exceed, the late illustrious 
Howard. 

The energy of his determination was so great, 
that if, instead of being habitual, it had been shown 
only for a short time on particular occasions, it would 
have appeared a vehement impetuosity ; but by be- 
ing unintermitted, it had an equability of manner 
which scarcely appeared to exceed the tone of a 
calm constancy, it was so totally the reverse of any 
thing like turbulence or agitation. It was the calm- 
ness of an intensity kept uniform by the nature of 
the human mind forbidding it to be more, and by 
the character of the individual forbidding it to be 
less. The habitual passion of his mind was a meas- 
ure of feeling almost equal to the temporary extremes 
and paroxysms of common minds : as a great river, 
in its customary state, is equal to a small or moderate 
one when swollen to a torrent. 

The moment of finishing his plans in deliberation, 
and commencing them in action, was the same. I 
wonder what must have been the amount of that 
bribe, in emolument or pleasure, that would have 
detained him a week inactive after their final adjust- 
ment. The law which carries water down a decliv- 
ity, was not more unconquerable and invariable than 
the determination of his feelings toward the ma.io 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 93 

object. The importance of this object held his fac- 
ulties in a state of excitement which was too rigid 
to be affected by lighter interests, and on which 
therefore the beautie's of nature and of art had no 
power. He had no leisure feeling which he could 
spare to be diverted among the innumerable varieties 
of the extensive scene which he traversed ; all his 
subordinate feelings lost their separate existence 
and operation, by falling into the grand one. There 
have not been wanting trivial minds, to mark this as 
a fault in his character. But the mere men of taste 
ought to be silent respecting such a man as Howard ; 
he is above their sphere of judgment. The invisible 
spirits, who fulfil their commission of philanthropy 
among mortals, do not care about pictures, statues, 
and sumptuous buildings ; and no more did he, when 
the time in which he must have inspected and ad- 
mired them, would have been taken from the work 
to which he had consecrated his life. The curiosity 
which he might feel, was reduced to wait till the 
hour should arrive, when its gratification should be 
presented by conscience, which kept a scrupulous 
charge of all his time, as the most sacred duty of that 
hour. If he was still at every hour, when it came, 
fated to feel the attractions of the fine arts but the 
second claim, they might be sure of their revenge ; 
for no other man will ever visit Rome under such a 
despotic consciousness of duty, as to refuse himself 
time for surveying the magnificence of its ruins. 
Such a sin against taste is very far beyond the reach 
of common saintship to commit. It implied an in- 
conceivable severity of conviction, that he had one 
thing to do, and that he who would do some great 
thing in this short life, must apply himself to the 
work with such a concentration of his forces, as, to 
idle spectators who live only to amuse themselves, 
looks like insanity. 

His attention was so strongly and tenaciously 
fixed on his object, that even at the greatest distance, 
as the Egyptian pyramids to travellers, it appeared 



94 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

to him with a luminous distinctness as if it had been 
nigh, and beguiled tlie toilsome length of labour and 
enterprise by which he was to reacli it. It was so 
conspicuous before him, that not a step deviated 
from the direction, and every movement and every 
day was an approximation. As his method referred 
every thing he did and thought to the end, and as 
his exertion did not relax for a moment, he made 
the trial, so seldom made, what is the utmost effect 
which may be granted to the last possible efforts of 
a human agent : and therefore what he did not ac- 
complish, he might conclude to be placed beyond the 
sphere of mortal activity, and calmly leave to the 
immediate disposal of Providence. 

Unless the eternal happiness of mankind be an 
insignificant concern, and the passion to promote it 
an inglorious distinction, I may cite George White- 
field as a noble instance of this attribute of the deci- 
sive character, this intense necessity of action. The 
great Cause which was so languid a thing in the 
hands of many of its advocates, assumed in his ad- 
ministrations an immitigable urgency. 

Many of the Christian missionaries among the 
heathens, such as Brainerd, Elliot, and Schwartz, 
have displayed memorable examples of this dedica- 
tion of their whole being to their office, this abjura- 
tion of all the quiescent feelings. 

This would be the proper place for introducing 
(if I did not hesitate to introduce in any connexion 
with merely human instances) the example of Him 
who said, 'I must be about my Father's business. 
My moat and drink is to do the will of Him that sent 
me, and to finish his work. I have a baptism to be 
baptized with, and how am I straitened till it be 
accomplished.' 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 95 



LETTER IV. 

Couragfe a chief Constituent of the Character.... Efiect of this in enconntering- Ten- 
sure and Ridicule. ...Aluiiigro, Pizino, and De Liiques... .Defiance of Danger.... 
Luther... Dai. iel. .Another intiispensable Reqnisiie to Decition is the fidl Afrree- 
nient ol'all ihe Powers of tlie Mind. ..Lady AlacLeth.. Richard lII...Cron:-ttell.... 
A FaCher who had tlie opportunity of saving' one of two Sons from Death. 

After the illustrations on the last article, it will 
seem but a very slight transition when I proceed to 
specify Courage, as an essential part of the decisive 
character. An intelligent man, adventurous only in 
thought, may sketch the most excellent scheme, and 
after duly admiring it, and himself as its author, may 
be reduced to say. What a noble spirit that would 
be which should "dare to realize this ! A noble spirit ! 
is it I ? And his heart may answer in the negative, 
while he glances a mortified thought of inquiry round 
to recollect persons who would venture what he 
dares not, and almost hopes not to find them. Or if 
by extreme effort he has brought himself to a reso- 
lution of braving the difficulty, he is compelled to 
execrate the timid lingerings that still keep him back 
from the trial. A man endowed with the complete 
character, micfht say, with a sober consciousness as 
remote from the spirit of bravado as it is from timid- 
ity. Thus, and thus, is my conviction and my deter- 
mination; now for the phantoms of fear; let me 
look them in the face ; thpy will find [ am not made 
of trembling materials : ' I dare do all that may be- 
come a man.' I shall firmly confront every thing 
that threatens me in the prosecuting of my purpose, 
and I am prepared to meet the conspquences of it 
•when it is accomplished. I should despise a being, 
though it were myself, whose agency could be held 
enslaved by the gloomy shapes of imagination, by 



96 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

the haunting recollections of a dream, by the whis- 
tling or thehowling of winds, by the shriek of owls, 
by the shades of midnight, or by the threats or frowns 
of man. I should be indignant to feel that, in the 
commencement of an adventure, I could think of 
nothing but the deep pit by the side of the way 
where I must walk, into which I may slide, the mad 
animal which it is not impossible that I may meet, or 
the assassin who may lurk in a thicket of yonder 
wood. And I disdain to compromise the interests 
that rouse me to action, for the privilege of a dis- 
graceful security. 

As the conduct of a decisive man is always indi- 
vidual, and often singular, he may expect some 
serious trials of courage. For one thing, he may 
be encountered by the strongest disapprobation of 
many of his connexions, and the censure of the 
greater part of the society where he is known. In 
this case, it is not a man of common spirit that can 
show himself just as at other times, and meet their 
anger in the same undisturbed manner as he would 
meet some ordinary inclemency of the weather ; 
that can, without harshness or violence, continue to 
effect every moment some part of his design, coolly 
replying to each ungracious look and indignant voice, 
I am sorry to oppose you : I am not unfriendly to 
you, while thus persisting in what excites your dis- 
pleasure ; it would please me to have your approba- 
tion and concurrence, and I think 1 should have them 
if you would seriously consider my reasons ; but 
meanwhile, I am superior to opinion, I am not to be 
intimidated by reproaches, nor would your favour 
and applause be any reward for the sacrifice of my 
object. As you can do without my approbation, I 
can certainly do without yours ; it is enough that 1 
can approve myself, it is enough that I can appeal 
to the last authority in the creation. Amuse your- 
selves, as you may, by continuing to censure or to 
rail ; /must continue to act. 

The attack of contempt and ridicule is perhaps a 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 



97 



still greater trial of courage. It is felt by all to be 
an admirable thing, when it can in no degree be 
ascribed to the hardness of either stupidity or con- 
firmed depravity, to sustain for a considerable time, 
or in numerous instances, the looks of scorn, or an 
unrestrained shower of taunts and jeers, with a per- 
fect composure, which shall immediately after, or 
even at the time, proceed on the business that pro- 
vokes all this ridicule. This invincibility of temper 
will often make even the scoffers themselves tired 
of the sport ; they begin to feel that against such a 
man it is a poor sort of hostility to laugh. There is 
nothing that people are more mortified to spend in 
vain than their scorn. Till, however, a m:in becomes 
a veteran, he must reckon on sometimes meeting 
this trial; and I instantly know — if I hear him 
anxiously reply, to an important suggestion of any 
measure to be adopted. But will they not laugh at 
me ? — I know that he is not the person whom this 
essay attempts to describe. A man of the right kind 
would say, They will smile, they will laugh, will 
they ? Much good may it do them. I have some- 
thing else to do than to trouble myself about their 
mirth. I do not care if the whole neighbourhood 
were to laugh in a chorus. I should indeed be sorry 
to see or hear such a number of fools, but pleased 
enough to find that they did not consider me as one 
of their stamp. The good to result from my project 
will not be less, because vain and shallow minds that 
cannot understand it, are diverted at it and at me. 
What should I think of my pursuits, if every trivial, 
thoughtless being could comprehend or would ap- 
plaud them ; and of myself, if my courage needed 
levity and ignorance for their allies, or could shrink 
at their sneers ? 

I remember, that on reading the account of the 
project of conquering Peru, formed by Almagro, 
Pizarro, and De Luques, while abhorring the prin- 
ciple and the desisfn of the men, I could not help 
admiring the hardihood of mine, which made them 



VQ ON DECISrO-X OF CHARACTER. 

regardless of scorn. These three individuals, before 
they had obtained any associates, or arms, or soldiers, 
or a complete knowledge of the power of the king- 
dom they were to conquer, celebrated a solemn mass 
in one of the great churches, as a pledge and a com- 
mencement of the enterprise, amidst the astonish^ 
ment and contempt expressed by a multitude of 
people for what was deemed a monstrous project. 
Tliey however proceeded through the service, and 
afterwards to their respective departments of prepar- 
ation, with an apparently entire insensibility to all 
this triumphant scorn ; and thus gave the first proof 
of possessing that invincible firmness with which 
they afterwards prosecuted their design, till they 
attained a success, the destructive process and many 
of the results of which humanity will forever deplore. 
Milton's Abdiel is a noble illustration of the cour- 
age that defies scorn. 

''But in some of the situations where decision of 
character is to be evinced, a man will be threatened 
by evils of a darker aspect than disapprobation or 
contempt. He may apprehend serious sufferings ; 
and very often, to dare as far as conscience or a 
great cause required, has been to dare to die. In 
almost all plans of great enterprise, a man must sys- 
tematically dismiss, at the entrance, every wish to 
stipulate for safety with his destiny. He voluntarily 
treads within the precints of danger ; and though it 
is possible that he may escape, he ought to be pre- 
pared with the fortitude of a self-devoted victim. 
This is the inevitable condition on which heroes, 
travellers or missionaries among savage n itions, and 
reformers on a grand scale, must commence their 
career. Either they must allay their fire of enter- 
prise, or they must hold themselves in readiness to 
be exploded by it from the world. 

The last decisive energy of a rational courage, 
which confides in the Supreme Power, is very sub- 
lime. It makes a man, who intrepidly dares every 
thing that can oppose or attack him within the whole 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 99 

spfiere of mortality ; who would retain his purpose 
unshaken amidst the ruins of the world ; who will 
still press toward his object while death is impending 
over him. 

It was in the true elevation of this character that 
Luther, when cited to appear at the Diet of Worms, 
under a very questionable assurance of safety from 
high authority, said to his friends, who conjured him 
not to sfo, and justly broug-ht the example of John 
Huss, who, in a similar situation, and with the same 
pledge of protection, had notwithstanding been burnt 
alive, ' 1 am called in the name of God to go, and I 
would go, though I were certain to meet as many 
devils in Worms as there are tiles on the houses.' 

A reader of the Bible will not forget Daniel, brav- 
ing in calm devotion the decree which virtually 
consigned him to the den of lions ; or Shadrach, 
Meshach and Abed-nego, saying to the tyrant, ' We 
are not careful to answer thee in this matter,' when 
the furnace was in sight. 

The combination of these several essential princi- 
ples constitutes that state of mind which is the grand 
requisite to decision of character, and perhaps its 
most striking distinction, that is, the full agreement 
of the mind with itself, the co-operation of all its 
powers and all its dispositions. 

What an unfortunate task it would be for a chari- 
oteer, who had harnessed a set of horses however 
strong, if he could not make them draw together ; 
if, while one of them would go forward, another was 
restive, another struggled backward, another started 
aside. If even one of the four were unmanageably 
perverse, while the three were obedient, an aged 
beggar with his crutch might leave Phaeton behind. 
So in a human being, unless the chief forces act 
consentaneously, there can be no inflexible vigour, 
either of will or of execution. One dissentient prin- 
ciple in the mind not only deducts so much from the 
strength and mass of its agency, but counteracts and 
embarrasses all the rest. If the judgment holds in 



100 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

low estimation that which yet the passions incline a 
man to pursue, his pursuit will be irregular and in- 
constant, though it may have occasional fits of an- 
imation, when those passions happen to be highly 
stimulated. If there is an opposition between judg- 
ment and habit, though the man will probably con- 
tinue to act mainly ulider the direction of habit in 
spite of his opinions, yet sometimes the intrusion of 
those opinions will have for the moment an effect 
like that of Prospero's wand on the limbs of Ferdi- 
nand ; and to be alternately impelled by habit, and 
checked by opinion, will be a state of vexatious 
debility. If two principal passions are opposite to 
each other, they will utterly distract any mind, what- 
ever might be the force of its faculties when acting 
without embarrassment. The one passion may be 
somewhat stronger than the other, and therefore 
just prevail barely enough to give a feeble impulse 
to the conduct of the man ; but no powerful impulse 
can be given, till the disparity of these two rivals 
becomes greater, in consequence of the gradual 
weight of habit, or the reinforcement supplied by 
some new impressions, being added 1o the prepon- 
derating passion. The disparity must be no less 
than an absolute predominence of the one and sub- 
jection of the other, before the prevailing passion 
will have at liberty from the intestine conflict any 
large measure of its force to throw activity into the 
system of conduct. If, for instance, a man feels at 
once the love of fame which is to be gained only by 
arduous exertions, and an equal degree of the love 
of pleasure which precludes those exertions ; if he 
is eager to show off in splendor, and yet anxious to 
save money ; if he has the curiosity of adventure, 
and yet that solicitude for his safety, which forbids 
him to climb a precipice, descend into a cavern, or 
explore a dangerous wild ; if he has the stern will 
of a tyrant, and yet the relentings of a man ; if he 
has the ambition which would subdue his fellow- 
mortals, counteracted by the humanity which would 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 101 

not hurt them ; we can easily anticipate the irreso- 
lute, contradictory tenour of his actions. Especially 
if conscience, that great troubler of the human 
breast, loudly declares against a man's wishes or 
projects, it will be a fatal enemy to decision, till it 
eitiher reclaim the delinquent passions, or be de- 
bauched or murdered by them. 

Lady Macbeth may be cited as a harmonious 
character, though the epithet seems strangely ap- 
plied. She had capacity, ambition, and courage ; 
and she willed the death of the king. Macbeth had 
still more capacity, ambition, and courage ; and he 
also willed the murder of the king. But he had, 
besides, humanity, generosity, conscience, and some 
measure of what forms the power of conscience, the 
fear of a Superior Being. Consequently, when the 
dreadful moment approached, he felt an insupporta- 
ble conflict between these opposite principles, and 
when it was arrived, his utmost courage began to 
fail. The worst part of his nature fell prostrate un- 
der the power of the better ; the angel of goodness 
arrested the demon that grasped the dagger; and 
would have taken that dagger away, if the pure 
demoniac firmness of his wife, who had none of 
these counteracting principles, had not shamed and 
hardened him to the deed. 

The poet's delineation of Richard IIL gives a 
dreadful specimen of this indivisibility of mental im- 
pulse. After his determination was fixed, his whole 
mind with the compactest fidelity supported him in 
prosecuting it. Securely privileged from all inter- 
ference of doubt that could linger, or humanity that 
could soften, or timidity that could shrink, he ad- 
vanced with a grim, concentrated constancy through 
scene after scene of atrocity, still fulfilling his vow 
to 'cut his way through with a bloody axe.' He did 
not waver while he pursued his object, nor relent 
when he seized it. 

Cromwell, (whom I mention as a parallel, not to 
Richard's depravity, but to his inflexible vigour) lost 



102 OW DECISION OF CHARACTER., 

his mental consistency in the latter end of a career 
distinguished by as much decision as the world ever 
saw. It appears that the wish to be a king, at last 
arose in a mind which had execrated royalty, and 
battled it from the land. As far as he really had 
any republican principles and partialities, this new 
desire must have been a very uncomplacent associ- 
ate for them, and must have produced a schism in 
the breast where all the strong- forces of thought and 
passion had acted till then in concord. The new 
form of ambition became just predominant enough 
to carry him, by slow degrees, through the embar- 
rassment and the shame of this incongruity, into an 
irresolute determination to assunie the crown ; so 
irresolute, that he was reduced again to a mortifying 
indecision by the remonstrances of some of his 
friends, which he could have slighted, and by an 
apprehension of the public disapprobation, which he 
could have braved, if some of the principles of his 
own mind had not shrunk or revolted from the de- 
sign. When at last the motives for relinquishing 
this design prevailed, it was by so small a degree of 
preponderance, that his reluctant refusal of the of- 
fered crown was the voice only of half his soul. 

Not only two distinct counteracting passions, but 
one passion interested for two objects, both equally 
desirable, but of which the one rnust be sacrificed, 
may annihilate in that instance the possibility of de- 
termined conduct. I recollect reading in an old 
divine, a story from an older historian, applicable to 
this remak. A father went to the agents of a ty- 
rant, to endeavour to redeem his two sons, military 
men, who with some other captives of war were 
condemned to die. He offered, as a ransom, to sur- 
render his own life and a large sum of money. The 
tyrant's agents who had them in charge, informed 
him that this equivalent would be accepted for one 
of his sons, and for one only, because they should 
be accountable for the execution of two persons ; 
he might therefore choose which he would redeem. 
Anxious to save even one of them thus at the ex- 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 103 

peni?e of his own life, he yet was unable to decide 
whicli should die, by choosing the other to live, and 
remained in the a^ony of this dilemma so long that 
they were both irreversibly ordered for execution. 



LETTER V. 

'forinirtaWe IPower of Mischief which this hio-h 0,ua!i'y srives to had Mcn....Cara 
require I to prevent iis re'i'ierinar g-ood Men vniConcilir-Lting- and overbertriii^ ... 
InJepeiiiJence Mnd iiverriilinsf MriiiTier in Consultation.. Lord Chatham. ..Decision 
efC!i iricli-r not iiicoaipafi'le with Sensibility '.ntl n ild Manners.. .Bni probahly 
the !\1 ijoi-ity of the nnj,5t eniineit Exiu]ple.s "of it deficient in the kinder Atlccliuiia 
....KinsT of Prussia. ..Situuions in wliicii it may he an absolute Duly to act in 
Opposition to ilie Promotings (;f those AffectioiiE. 

It were absurd to suppose that any human being" 
■can attain a state of mind capable of acting in all 
instances invariably with the full power of determi- 
nation ; but it is obvious that many have possessed 
a habitual and very commanding measure of it; and 
I think the preceding remarks have taken account 
-of its chief characteristics and constituent principles. 
A numb-^r of additional observations remain. 

The slightest view of human affairs shows what 
fatal and ample mischief may be caused by men of 
this character, when misled or wicked. You have 
but to recollect the conquerors, despots, bigots, un- 
just conspirators, and signal villains of every class, 
who have blasted society by the relentless vigour 
which could act consistently and heroically wrong. 
Till therefore the virtue of mankind be greater, there 
is reason to be pleased that so few of them are en- 
dowed with extraordinary decisioti. 

When this character is dignified by wisdom and 
principle, great care is yet required in the possessors 
of it to prevent it from becoming unainlable. As it 
involves much practical assertion of Superiority over 
other human beings, the manner ought to be as mild 



104 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

and conciliating as possible ; else pride will feel 
provoked, affection hurt, and weakness oppressed. 
But this manner is not the one which will be most 
natural to such a man; rather it will be that of 
sternness, reserve, and incompliance. He will have 
the appearance of keeping himself always at a dis- 
tance from social equality ; and his friends will feel 
as if their friendship Avere continually sliding into 
subserviency ; while his intimate connexions will 
think he does not attach the due importance either 
to their opinions or to their regard. His manner, 
when they differ from him, or complain, will be in 
danger of giving the impression of careless inatten- 
tion, and sometimes of disdain. 

When he can accomplish a design in his own per- 
son alone, he may separate himself" to the work with 
the cold, self-inclosed individuality on which no one 
has any hold, which seems to recognise no kindred 
being in the world, which takes "little account of 
good wishes and kind concern, any more than it 
cares for opposition ; which seeks neither aid nor 
sympathy, and which seems to say, I do not want 
any of you, and I am glad that I do not ; leave me 
alone to succeed or die. This has a very repellent 
effect on the friends who wished to feel themselves 
of some importance, in some way or other, to a per- 
son whom they are constrained to respect. When 
assistance is indispensable to his undertakings, his 
mode of signifying it will seem rather to command 
the co-operation, than to invite it. 

In consultation, his manner will indicate that when 
he is equally with the rest in possession of the cir- 
cumstances of the case, he does not at all expect to 
hear any opinions that shall correct his own ; but is 
satisfied that either his present conception of the 
subject is the just one, or that his own mind must 
originate that which shall be so. This striking dif- 
ference will be apparent between him and his asso- 
ciates, that their manner of receiving his opinions is 
that of agreement or dissent ; his manner of receiv- 
ing theirs is that of sanction or rejection. He has 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 105 

the tone of authoritatively deciding on what they 
say, but never of submitting to decision of what 
himself says. Their coincidence with his views 
does not give him a firmer assurance of his being 
right, nor their dissent any other impression than 
that of their incapacity to judge. If his feeling took 
the distinct form of a reflection, it would be, Mine 
is the business of comprehending and devising, and 
I am here to rule this company, and not to consult 
them ; I want their docility and not their arguments ; 
I am come, not to seek their co-operation in thinking, 
but to determine their concurrence in executing 
what is already thought for them,, Of course, many 
suggestions and reasons which appear important to 
those from whom they come, will be disposed of 
by him with a transient attention, or a light fecility, 
that will seem very disrespectful to persons who 
possibly hesitate to admit that he is a demi-god, and 
that they are but idiots. Lord Chatham, in going 
out of the House of Commons, just as one of the 
speakers against him concluded his speech by em- 
phatically urging what he perhaps rightly thought 
the unanswerable question, ' JVhere can we find 
means to support such a war ?' turned round a mo- 
ment, and gaily replied, ' Gentle shepherd, tell me 
where.' 

Even the assenting convictions, and practical com- 
pliances, yielded by degrees to this decisive man, 
may be somewhat undervalued ; as they will appear 
to him no more than simply coming, and that perhaps 
very slowly, to a right apprehension ; whereas him- 
self understood and decided justly from the first, ancj 
has been right all this while. 

He will be in danger of extending but little toler^ 
ance to the prejudices, hesitation, and timidity, of 
those with whom he has to act. He will say to him- 
self, I M'ish there were any thing like manhood 
among the beings called men ; and that they could 
have the sense and spirit not to let themselves be 
hampered by so many silly notions and childish fears, 
Why cannot they either determine with some proiop? 



106 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

titude, or let me, that can, do it for them ? Am I to 
wait till debility become strong, and folly wise ? — 
If full scope be allowed to these tendencies, they 
will make even a man of elevated virtue a tyrant, 
who, in the consciousness of the right intention, and 
he assurance of the wise contrivance, of his designs, 
will hold himself justified in being regardless of ev- 
ery thing but the accomplishment of them. He will 
forget all respect for the feelings and liberties of 
beings who are to be regarded as but a subordinate 
machinery, to be actuated, or to be thrown aside when 
not actuated, by the spring of his commanding spirit. 

I have before asserted that this strong character 
may be exhibited v/ith a mildness of manner, and 
that, generally, it will thus best secure its efficacy. 
But this mildness must often be at the cost of great 
effort ; and how much considerate policy or benev- 
olent forbearance it will require, for a man to exert 
his utmost vigour in the very task, as it will appear 
to him at the" time, of cramping that vigour ! Ly- 
curgus appears to have been a high example of mild 
patience in the firm prosecution of designs which 
were to be effected among a perverse multitude. ^ 

It is probable that the men most distinguished for 
decision, have not, in general, possessed a large 
share of tenderness ; and it is easy to imagine that 
the laws of our nature will with great difficulty alloy/ 
the combination of the refined sensibilities vdth a 
hardy, never-shrinking, never-yielding constancy. 
Is it not almost of the essence of this constancy to 
be free from even the 'perception of such impressions 
as cause a mind, weak through susceptibility, to 
relax or waver ; just as the skin of the elephant, or 
the armour of the rhinoceros, would be but indis- 
tinctly sensible to the application of a force by which 
a small animal, with a skin of thin and delicate tex- 
ture, would be pierced or lacerated to death ? No 
doubt, this firmness consists partly in overcoming 
feelings, but it may consist partly too in not having 
them. To be tremblingly alive to gentle impressions, 
and yet to be able to preserve, when the prosecution 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 107 

of a design requires it, an immoveable heart, amidst 
the most imperious causes of subduing emotion, is 
perhaps not an impossible constitution of mind, but 
it must be the rarest endowment of humanity. 

If you take a view of the first rank of decisive 
men, you will observe that their faculties have been 
too much bent to arduous effort, their souls have 
been kept in too military an attitude, they have been 
begirt with too much iron, for the melting move- 
ments of the heart. Their whole beins: appears too 
much arrogated and occupied by the spirit of severe 
design, compelling them to work systematically to- 
ward some defined end, to be sufficiently at ease for 
the indolent complacency, the soft lassitude, of gen- 
tle affections, which love to surrender themselves to 
the present felicities, forgetful of all ' enterprises of 
great pith and moment.' The man seems rigorously 
intent still on his own affairs, as he walks, or regales, 
or mingles with' domestic society ; and appears to 
despise all the feelings that will not take rank with 
the grave labours and decisions of intellect, or coal- 
esce with the unremitting passion which is his spring 
of action : he values not feelings which he cannot 
employ either as weapons or as engines. He loves 
to be actuated by a passion so strong as to compel 
into exercise the utmost force of his being, and fix 
him in a tone, compared with which, the gentle af- 
fections, if he had felt them, would be accounted 
tameness, and their exciting causes, insipidity. 

Yet we cannot willingly allow that tenderness is 
totally incompatible with the most impregnable in- 
flexibility ; nor can we help believing that such men 
as Timoleon, Alfred, and Gustavus Adolphus, must 
have been very fascinating domestic associates, 
whenever the urgency of their affairs would allow 
them to withdraw from the interests of statesmen 
and warriors, to indulge the affections of men : most 
fascinating, for, with a relative or friend who had 
any right perceptions, all the value of their stronger 
character would be recognised in the gentler one ; 
the man whom nothing could subdue, would exalt 



108 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

the quality of the tenderness which softened him to 
recline. 

But it were much easier to enumerate along train 
of ancient and modern names of men, who have had 
the decision without the softness. Perhaps indeed 
they have yielded sometimes to some species of love, 
as a mode of amusing their passions for an interval, 
till greater engagements have summoned them into 
their proper element ; when they have shown how 
little the sentiment ever belonged to the heart, by 
the ease with which they could relinquish the tem- 
porary favourite. In other cases, where there have 
not been the selfish inducements, which this passion 
supplies, to the exhibition of something like softness, 
and where they have been left to the pure sympa- 
thies of humanity alone, no rock on the face of the 
earth could be harder. 

The celebrated King of Prussia occurs to me, as 
a capital instance of the decisive character ; and 
there occurs to me, at the same time, one of the 
anecdotes of his life.*^ Intending to make, in the 
night, an important movement in his camp, which 
was in sight of the enemy, he gave orders that by 
eight o'clock all the lights in the camp should be 
put out, on pain of death. The moment that the 
time was past, he walked out himself to see' Whether 
all were dark. He found a light in the tent of a 
Captain Zietern, which he entered just as the officer 
was folding up a letter. Zietern knew him, and in- 
stantly fell on his knees to entreat his mercy. The 
king asked to whom he had been writing ; he said 
it was a letter to his wife, which he had retained 



* Tlie authenticity of this anecdote, which I read in some tri- 
fling fugitive publication many years since, has been questioned. 
Possibly enough it might be one of the many but half true stories 
which could not fail to go abroad concerning a man who made, in 
his day, so great a figure. But as it does not at all misrepresent 
the general character of his mind, since there are many incontro- 
vertible facts proving against him as great a degree of deliberate 
cruelty as this anecdote would charge on him, the want of means 
to prove this one fact does not seem to impose any necessity for 
omitting the illustration. 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 109 

the candle these few minutes beyond the time in 
order to finish. The king coolly ordered him to rise, 
and write one line more, which he should dictate. 
This line was to inform his wife, without any expla- 
nation, that by such an hour the next day, he should 
be a dead man. The letter was then sealed, and 
despatched as it had been mtended ; and, the n,ext 
day, the captain was executed. I say nothing of the 
justice of the punishment itself; but this cool bar- 
barity to the affection both of the officer and his 
wife, was enough to brand the character indelibly. 
It proved how little the decisive hero and pretended 
philosopher was susceptible of such an affection, or 
capable of sympathizing with its pains. 

At the same time, it is proper to observe, that the 
case may easily occur, in which a man must be res- 
olute to act in a manner which may make him appear 
to want the finer feelings. He must do what he 
knows Avill cause pain to persons who will feel it 
severely. He may be obliged to resist affectionate 
wishes, expostulations, entreaties, and tears. Take 
this same instance. If the wife of Zietern had come 
to supplicate for him, not only the remission of the 
punishment of death, but an exemption froni any 
other severe punishment, which was perhaps justly 
due to the violation of such an order, on so important 
an occasion, it had then probably been the duty and 
,the virtue of the commander to deny the most inter- 
esting suppliant, and to resist the most pathetic ap- 
peals which could have been made to his feelings. 



110 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 



LETTER VI. 

Circumstances tending to consolidate this Character.. ..Opposition... Desertion,... 
Marius ..Satan ..Charles de Moor.. ..Success has the same Tendency.. ..Cresar.... 
Habit of associating with Inferiors... .Voh)ntary means of forming or confirming 
this Character., .The Acquisition of perfect Knowledge in the Department in 
which we are to act.. ..The Cultivation of a connected and conclusive Manner of 
reasoning... The resolute commencement of Action, in a Manner lo commit our- 
selves irretrievably. ..Ledyard... .The choice of a dignified Order of Concerns.... 
The Approbation of Conscience. ...Yet melancholy to consider how many of the 
most distinguished Possessors of the duality have been wicked. 

Various assignable circumstances may contrib- 
ute much to confirm the character in question. I 
shall just notice two or three. 

And first, opposition. The passions which inspirit 
men to resistance, and sustain them in it, such as 
anger, indignation, and resentment, are evidently far 
stronger than those which have reference to friendly 
objects ; and if any of these strong passions are fre- 
quently excited by opposition, they infuse a certain 
quality into the general temperament of the mind, 
which remains after the immediate excitement is 
past. They continually strengthen the principle of 
re-action ; they put the mind in the habitual array 
of defence and self-assertion, and often give it the 
aspect and the posture of a gladiator, when there 
appears no confronting combatant. When these 
passions are felt by the man whom I describe, it 
is probable that each excitement is followed by a 
greater increase of this principle of re-action than 
in other men, because this result is so congenial 
with his naturally resolute disposition. Let him be 
opposed then, through the whole course of an ex- 
tended design, or in the general tenour of his ac- 
tions ; and this constant opposition would render 
him the service of an ally by corroborating his in- 
flexibility. An irresolute mind indeed might be 
quelled and subjugated by a formidable kind of op- 
position ; but the strong wind which blows out a 



OF DECISION OF CHARACTER. Ill 

taper, augments a powerful fire, if there is fuel 
enough, to an indefinite intensity. 

I believe you will find in fact that many of the 
individuals most eminently decisive in conduct, have 
made their way through opposition and contest ; in 
which they have acquired both a prompt acuteness 
of faculty, and an inflexibility of temper, which even 
strong minds could never have attained in the tame 
security of facile, friendly coincidence. Very often, 
however, it is granted, the firmness matured by such 
discipline is accompanied, in a man of virtue, with a 
Catonic severity, and in a mere man of the world, 
with an unhumanized, repulsive hardness. 

Desertion is another cause which may conduce to 
consolidate this character. A kind, mutually reclin- 
ing dependence, is certainly the happiest state of 
human beings ; but this necessarily prevents the 
development of some great individual powers which 
would be forced into action by a state of desertion. 
I lately happened to notice, with some surprise, an 
ivy, which being prevented from attaching itself to 
the rock beyond a certain point, had shot off into a 
bold, elastic stem, with an air of as much indepen- 
dence as any branch of oak in the vicinity. So a 
human being, thrown, whether by cruelty, justice, 
or accident, from all social support and kindness, if 
he has any vigour of spirit, and is not in the bodily 
debility of either childhood or age, will instantly 
begin to act for himself with a resolution which will 
appear like a new faculty. And the most absolute 
inflexibility is likely to characterize the resolution 
of an individual who is obliged to deliberate without 
consultation, and execute without assistance. He 
will disdain to concede to beings that have rejected 
him, or to forego a single particle of his designs or 
advantages, for the sake of the opinions or the will 
of all the world. Himself, his pursuits, and his in- 
terests, are emphatically his own. 'The world is 
not his friend, nor the world's law,' and therefore 
he becomes regardless of every thing but its power, 
of which his policy carefully takes the measure, in 



112 ON DECISION OF GHARACTERi, 

order to ascertain his oWn means of action and im-' 
punity, as set against the world's means of annoy-* 
ance, prevention^ and retaliation. 

Lf this person has but little humanity or principle^ 
he Will become a misanthrope, or perhaps a villain, 
that will resemble a solitary wild beast of the night, 
•which makes prey of every thing it can overpower^ 
and cares for nothing but fire. If he is capable of 
grand conception and enterprise, he may, like Spar- 
tacus, make a daring attempt against the whole so- 
cial order of the state where he has been oppressed. 
If he has great humanity and principle, he may be- 
come one of the noblest of mankind, and display a 
generous virtue to which society had no claim, and 
which it is not worthy to reward, if it should at last 
become inclined. No, he will say, give your rewards 
to another ; as it has been no part of my object to 

fain them, they are not necessary to my satisfaction, 
have done good, without expecting your gratitude, 
and without caring for your approbation. If con- 
science and my Creator had not been more auspicious 
than you, none of these virtues would ever have 
opened to the day. When I ouglit to have been an 
object of your compassion, I might have perished ; 
now, when you find I can serve your interests, you 
will affect to acknowledge me and reward me ; I 
will not accept your rewards. — In either case, vir- 
tuous or wicked, the man who has been compelled 
to do without assistance, will spurn interference. 

Common life would supply illustratiohs of the ef- 
fect of desertion. Some of the most resolute men 
have become such, partly from being left friendless 
in early life. The case has also sometimes happen- 
ed, that a wife and mother, remarkable perhaps for 
gentleness and acquiescence before, has been com- 
pelled, after the death of her husband on whom she 
depended, and when she has met with nothing but 
neglect or unkindness from relatives and those who 
had been deemed friends, to adopt a plan of her own, 
and has executed it with a resolution which has 
astonished even herself. 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 113 

One regrets that the signal examples, real or fic- 
titious, that most readily present themselves, are still 
of the depraved order. I fancy myself to see Marius 
sitting on the ruins of Carthage, where no arch or 
column that remained unshaken amidst the desola- 
tion, could present a stronger image of a firmness 
beyond the power of calamitous events to subdue. 
The rigid constancy which had before distinguished 
his character, would be aggravated by his finding 
himself thus an outcast from all human society ; and 
he would proudly shake off every sentiment that had 
ever for an instant checked his designs by reminding 
him of social obligations. The lonely individual Avas 
placed in the alternative of becoming the victim or 
the antagonist of the power of the empire. While, 
with a spirit capable of confronting that power, he 
resolved, amidst those ruins, on a great experiment, 
he would enjoy a kind of sullen luxury in surveying 
the dreary situation, and recollecting the circum- 
stances of his expulsion ; since they would seem to 
him to sanction an unlimited vengeance ; to present 
what had been his country as the pure legitimate 
prize for desperate achievement ; and to give him a 
proud consequence in being reduced to maintain 
singly a quarrel against thebulk of mankind. He 
would exult that his desolate condition gave him a 
proof of his possessing a mind which no misfortunes 
could repress or intimidate, and that it kindled an 
animosity intense enough to force that mind from 
firm endurance into impetuous action. He would feel 
as if he became stronger for enterprise, in proportion 
as he became more inexorable ; and the sentiment 
with which he quitted his solitude would be, Rome 
expelled her patriot, let her receive her evil genius. 

The decision of Satan, in Paradise Lost, is rep- 
resented as consolidated by his reflections on his 
hopeless banishment from heaven, which oppress 
him with sadness for a moment, but he soon resumes 
his invincible spirit, and utters the impious but sub- 
lime sentiment, 

« What matter where, if / be still the same.' 



» 

114 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

You remember how this effect of desertion is rep- 
resented in Charles de Moor. His fatlier's supposed 
cruel rejection consigned him irretrievably to the 
career of atrocious enterprise, in which, notwith- 
standing the most interesting emotions of humanity 
and tenderness, he persisted with heroic determina- 
tion till he considered his destiny as accomplished. 

Success tends considerably to reinforce this char- 
acter. It is true that a man possessing it in a high 
degree will not lose it by occasional failure ; for if 
the failure was caused by something entirely beyond 
the reach of all human knowledge and ability, he 
will remember that fortitude is the virtue required 
in meeting unfavourable events which in no sense 
depended on him ; if by something which might have 
been known and prevented, he will feel that even 
the experience of failure completes his competence, 
by admonishing his prudence, and enlarging his 
understanding. But as all schemes and measures 
of action have reference to some end, and if wise, 
are correctly adapted to attain that end, continual 
failure would show something essentially wrong in 
a man's system, and either destroy his confidence, 
or prove it to be mere absurdity or obstinacy. On 
the contrary, when a man has ascertained by exper- 
iment the justness of his calculations and the extent 
of his powers, when he has measured his force with 
various persons, when he has braved and conquered 
difficulty, and partly seized the prize, he will advance 
with increasing assurance to the trials which still 
await him. 

In some men whose lives have been spent in con- 
stant perils, continued success has produced a con- 
fidence beyond its rational effect, by inspiring a 
persuasion that the common laws of human affairs 
were, in their case, superseded by the decrees of a 
peculiar destiny, securing them from almost the 
possibility of disaster ; and this superstitious feeling, 
though it has displaced the unconquerable resolution 
from its rational basis, has yet often produced the 
most wonderful ejects. This persuasion dictated 



OlS DECISION OF CHARACTER. 115 

Caesar's expression to the mariner who was terrified 
at the storm and billows, ' What art thou afraid 
of? Thy vessel carries Csssar.' This idea had 
some influence among the intrepid men in the time 
of the English Commonwealth. 

The wilfulness of an obstinate person is sometimes 
fortified by some single instance of remarkable suc- 
cess in his undertakings, which is promptly recalled 
in every case where his decisions are questioned or 
opposed, as a proof that he must in this instance too 
be right ; especially if that one success happened 
contrary to your predictions. 

I shall only add, and without illustration, that the 
habit of associating with inferiors, among whom a 
man can always, and therefore does always, take 
the lead, is very conducive to a subordinate kind of 
decision of character. You may see this exemplified 
any day in an ignorant country 'squire among his 
vassals; especially if he wears the superadded maj- 
esty of Justice of the Peace. 

In viewing the characters and actions of the men 
who have possessed the supreme deg-ree of the qual- 
ity which 1 have attempted to describe, one cannot 
but wish it were possible to know how much of this 
astonishing superiority was created by the circum- 
stances in which they were placed ; but it seems 
inevitable to believe that there was some vast differ- 
ence from ordinary men in the very structure of the 
mind. In observing lately a man who appeared too 
vacant almost to think of a purpose, too indifferent 
to resolve upon it, and too sluggish to execute it if 
he had resolved, I was distinctly struck with the idea 
of the difference between him and Marius, of whom 
I happened to have been thinking ; and I felt it ut- 
terly beyond my power to believe that any circum- 
stances on earth, though ever so perfectly combined 
and adapted, would Have produced in this man, if 
placed under their fullest influence from his child- 
hood, any resemblance (beyond perhaps a diminu- 
tive kind of revenge and cruelty) of the formidablQ 
Roman. 



116 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

It is needless to discuss whether a person who is 
practically evinced, at the age of maturity, to want 
the stamina of this character, can, by any process, 
acquire it. Indeed such a person cannot have suffi- 
cient force o?will to make the complete experiment. 
If there is the unconquerable will that would persist 
to seize all possible means, and apply them in order 
to attain such an end, it would prove the existence 
already of a high degree of the character sought ; 
and if there is not this will, how then is the supposed 
attainment possible ? 

Yet though it is improbable that a very irresolute 
man can ever become a habitually decisive one, it 
should be observed, that since there are many de- 
grees of determined character, and since the essential 
principles of it, partially existing in those degrees, 
cannot be supposed subject to an absolute and ulti-- 
mate limitation, like the dimension of the bodily 
stature, it might be possible to apply a discipline 
which should advance a man from the first degree 
to the second, and from that to the third, and how 
much further — it will be well worth his trying, after 
he shall have made this first progress. I have but a 
very imperfect conception of the discipline ; but will 
suggest a hint or two. 

And in the first place, the indispensable necessity 
of a clear and comprehensive knowledge of the con- 
cerns before us, seems too obvious for remark; and 
yet no man has been sufficiently sensible of it, till he 
has been placed in circumstances which forced him 
to act before he had time, or after he had made in- 
effectual efforts, to obtain the needful information. 
The pain of having brought things to an unfortunate 
issue, is hardly greater than that of proceeding in 
the conscious ignorance which continually threatens 
such an issue. While thus proceeding without plan 
or guide, because he positively cannot be permitted 
to remain in inaction, a man looks round for infor- 
mation as eagerly as a benig-hted wanderer would 
for the light of a human dwelling. He perhaps la- 
bours to recal what he thinks he once heard or read 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 117 

in relation to a similar situation, without dreaming 
at the time he heard or read it, that such instruction 
could ever be of importance to him; and is distress- 
ed to find that he cannot accurately recollect it. He 
would give a considerable sum, if some particular 
book could be brought to him at the instant ; or a 
certain document which he believes to be in exist- 
ence ; or the detail of a process, the terms of a pre- 
scription, or the model of an implement. He thinks 
how many people know, without its being of any 
present use to them, exactly what could be of such 
important service to him, if he could know it. In 
some cases, a line, a sentence, a monosyllable of 
affirming" or denying, or a momentary sight of an 
object, would be inexpressibly valuable and wel- 
come. And he resolves that if he can once happily 
escape from the present difficulty, he will apply him- 
self day and night to obtain knowledge, rather than 
be so involved and harassed again. It might even 
be of service to have been occasionally forced to act 
under the disadvantage of conscious ignorance, if 
the affair was not very important, nor the conse- 
quence very injurious, as an effectual lesson on the 
necessity of knowledge in order to decision either 
of plan or execution. It is indeed an extreme case 
that will compel a considerate man to act without 
knowledge ; yet he may often be necessitated to 
proceed to action, when he is sensible his informa- 
tion does not extend to the whole of the concern in 
which he is going to commit himself. And in this 
case, he will feel no little uneasiness, while trans- 
acting that part of it in which his knowledge is com- 
petent, when he looks forward to the point where 
that knowledge terminates ; unless he is conscious 
of a very prompt faculty of catching information at 
the moment that he wants it for use ; as Indians set 
out on a long journey with but a small stock of pro- 
vision, because they are certain that their bows or 
guns will procure it by the way. It is one of the 
nicest points of wisdom to decide how much less 
than complete knowledge, in any question of practi- 



118 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

€al interest, will warrant a man to venture on an 
undertaking, in the presumption that the deficiency 
will be supplied in time to prevent either perplexity 
or disaster. 

A thousand familiar instances show the effect of 
perfect knowledge on determination. An artizan 
may be said to be decisive as to the mode of working 
a piece of iron or wood, because he is certain of the 
proper process and the effect. A man perfectly ac- 
quainted with the intricate paths of a district, takes 
the right one without a moment's hesitation ; while 
a stranger who has only some very vague informa- 
tion, is lost in perplexity. It is easy to imagine what 
a number of circumstances may occur in the course 
of a life or even of a year, in which a man cannot 
thus readily determine, and thus confidently proceed, 
without an extent and an exactness of knowledge 
which few persons have application enough to ac- 
quire. 

In connexion with the necessity of knowledge, I 
would suggest the importance of cultivating, with the 
utmost industry, a conclusive manner of reasoning. 
In the first place, let the general course of thinking 
he reasoning ; for it should be remembered that this 
name does not belong to a series of thoughts and 
fancies which follov/ one another without deduction 
or dependence, and which can therefore no more 
bring a subject to a proper issue, than a number of 
separate links will answer the mechanical purpose 
of a chain. The conclusion which terminates such 
a series, does not deserve the name of result, since 
it has little more than a casual connexion'with what 
went before ; the conclusion might as well have 
taken place at an earlier point of the train, or have 
been deferred till that train had been extended much 
further. Instead of having been busily employed in 
this kind of thinking, for perhaps many hours, a man 
might as well have been sleeping all the time ; since 
the single thought which is now to determine his 
conduct, might have happened to be the first thought 
that occured to him on awaking. It only happens to 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 119 

occur to him now ; it does not follow from what he 
has been thinking all these hours ; at least, he can- 
not prove that some other thought might not just as 
f)roperly have come in its place, at the end of this 
ong series. It is easy to see how feeble that deter- 
mination is likely to be, Avhich is formed on so nar- 
row a ground as the last accidental idea that comes 
into the mind, or on so loose a ground as this crude 
uncombined assemblage of ideas. Indeed it is diffi- 
cult to form a determination at all on such slight 
ground. A man delays, and waits for some more 
satisfactory thought to occur to him ; and perhaps 
he has not waited long, before an idea arises in his 
mind of a quite contrary tendency to the last. As 
this additional idea is not, more than that which 
preceded it, the result of any process of reasoning, 
nor brings with it any arguments, it is likely to give 
place soon to another, and still another ; and they 
are all in succession of equal authority, that is, of 
none. If at last an idea occurs to him which seems 
of considerable authority, he may here make a stand, 
and adopt his resolution, with firmness, as he thinks, 
and commence the execution. But still, as he can- 
not verify the authority of the principle which has 
determined him, his resolution is likely to prove 
treacherous and evanescent in any serious trial. A 
principle so little defined and established by sound 
reasoning, is not terra firma for a man to trust him- 
self upon ; it is only as a slight incrustation on a 
yielding element ; it is like the sand on the surface 
of the Jake Serbonis, which broke away under the 
unfortunate army which had begun to advance on it, 
mistaking it for solid ground. — These remarks may 
seem to refer only to a single instance of delibera- 
tion ; but they are equally applicable to all the de- 
liberations and undertakings of a man's life : the 
same closely connected manner of thinking, which 
is so necessary to give firmness of determination 
and of conduct in a particular instance, will, if habit- 
ual, greatly contribute to form a decisive character. 
Not only should thinking be thus reduced by a 



120 ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

rigid discipline, to a train, in which all the parts at 
once depend upon and support one another, but also 
this train should be followed on to a full conclusion. 
It should be held as an absolute law, that the ques- 
tion must be disposed of before it is let alone. The 
mind may carry on this accurate process to some 
length, and then stop through indolence, or divert 
through levity ; but it can never possess that rational 
confidence in its opinions which is requisite to the 
character in question, till it is conscious of acquiring 
them from trains of reasoning which are followed 
on to their result. The habit of thinking thus com- 
pletely is indispensable to the character in general ; 
and in any particular instance, it is found that short 
pieces of trains of reasoning, though correct as far 
as they go, are inadequate to qualify a man for the 
immediate concern. They are besides of little value 
for the assistaiice of future thinking; because from 
being left thusincomplete, they are but slightly re- 
tained by the mind, and soon sink away ; in the same 
manner as walls left unfinished speedily moulder. 

After these remarks, I should take occasion to 
observe, that a vigorous exercise of thought may 
sometimes for a while seem to increase the difficulty 
of decision, by discovering a great number of un- 
thought-of reasons for a measure and against it, so 
that even a discriminating mind may, during a short 
space, find itself in the state of the magnetic needle 
under the equator. But no case in the world can 
really have this perfect equality of opposite reasons ; 
nor will it long appear to have it, in the estimate of 
a clear and strongly exerted intellect, which after 
some time will ascertain, though the difference is 
small, which side of the question has twenty, and 
which has but nineteen. 

Another thing that would powerfully assist toward 
complete decision, both in the particular instance, 
and in the general spirit of the character, is for a 
man to place himself in a situation like that in which 
Csesar placed his soldiers, when he burnt the ships 
which brought them to land. If his judgment is re-' 



ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 121 

nlly decided, let him commit himself irretrievably 
by doing something which shall compel him to do 
more, which shall necessitate him to do all. If a 
man resolves as a general intention to be a philan- 
thropist, I would say to him. Form some actual plan 
of philanthropy, and begin the execution of it to- 
morrow, (perhaps I should sdiy to-day,) so explicitly, 
that you cannot relinquish it without becoming des- 
picable even in your own estimation. If a man 
would be a hero, let him, if it is possible to find a 
good cause in arms, go instantly to the camp. If a 
man would be a traveller through distant countries, 
let him actually prepare to set off. Let him not still 
dwell, in imagination, on mountains, rivers, and temi- 
ples ; but give directions about his remittances, his 
clothes, or the carriage, or the vessel, in which he is 
to go. Ledyard surprised the official person who 
asked him how soon he could be ready to set off for 
the interior of Africa, by replying promptly and 
firmly, 'To-morrow.' 

Again, it is highly conducive to a manly firmness, 
that the interests in which it is exerted, should be of 
a dignified order, so as to give the passions an ample 
scope, and a noble object. The degradation that 
should devote these passions to mean and trivial 
pursuits, would in general, I should think, like- 
wise debilitate their energy, and therefore preclude 
strength of character. 

And finally, if I would repeat that one should 
think a man's own conscientious approbation of his 
conduct must be of vast importance to his decision 
in the outset, and his persevering constancy, I must 
at the same time acknowledge that it is astonishing 
to observe how many of the eminent examples have 
been very wicked men. ' These must certainly be 
deemed also examples of the original want, or the 
depravation, or the destruction, of the moral sense. 

I am sorry, and I attribute it to defect of memory, 
that a greater proportion of the illustrations intro- 
duced in this essay, are not as conspicuous for good- 
ness as for power. It is melancholy to contemplate 



M ON I>£C1SI0N OF CHARACTER. 

beings, whom our imagination represents as capable) 
I when they possessed great external means in addi- 
tion to the force of their minds,) of the grandest 
utility, capable of vindicating each good cause which 
has languished in a world adverse to all goodness, 
and capable of intimidating the collective vices of a 
nation or an age-— becoming themselves the very 
centres and volcanoes of those vices ; and it is mel- 
ancholy to follow them in serious thought, from this 
tegion, of which not all the powers and difficulties 
and inhabitants together could have subdued their 
adamantine resolution, to the Supreme Tribunal 
where that resolution must tremble and melt away» 



ESSAY III. 

OJV THE jIPPLICjITIOJV OF THE EPITHET ROMANTIC 



LETTER I. 

Great convenience of having; a number of Words that will answer the- Purposes of 
Ridicule or Reprobation without liaving any precise Meaning.. ..Puritan. ...Meth- 
odist. ...JacobiQ....The word Romantic of the greatest Service to Persons, who, 
wanting to shew their Scorn, have not wherewithal in the way of Sense or Wit... 
Whenever this Epithet is applied, let the exact Meaning be demanded. ...Does It 
attribute, to what it is applied to, the kind of Absurdity prevalent in the Works 
called Romances ?... .That Absurdity was from the Predominance, in various 
Modes, of Imagination over Judgment. ...Mental Character of the early Romance 
Writers. ...Opposite Character of Cervantes..,. Delightful, delusive, and mischiev- 
ous Operation of a predominant Imagination... Yet desirable, for several Reasons^ 
that the Imagination should have this Ascendency in early Life. 

MT DEAR FRIEND, 

A THOUGHTFUL judgG of sentimeiits, books, and 
men, will often find reason to regret that the lan- 
guage of censure is so easy and so undefined. It 
costs no labour, and needs no intellect, to pronounce 
the words, foolish, stupid, dull, odious, absurd, ridic- 
ulous. The weakest or most uncultivated mind may 
therefore gratify its vanity, laziness, and malice, all 
at once, by a prompt application of vague, condem- 
natory words, where a wise and liberal man would 
not feel himself warranted to pronounce without 
the most deliberate consideration, and where such 
consideration might perhaps terminate in applause. 
Thus the most excellent performances, whether in 
the department of thinking or of action, might be 
consigned to conteraptj if there weie no hetteir 



124 



ON THE APPLICATION OF 



judges, on the authority of those who could not even 
understand them. A man who wishes some decency 
and sense to prevail in the circulation of opinions, 
will do well, when he hears these decisions of igno- 
rant arrogance, to call for a precise explication of 
the manner in which the terms apply to the subject. 

There is a competent number of words for this 
use of cheap censure ; but though a man deems 
himself to be giving no mean proof of sagacity in 
this confident readiness to condemn, even with this 
impotence of language, he may however have a cer- 
tain consciousness that there is, in some other minds, 
a keen dexterity which would find expressions to 
bite harder than the words, dull, stupid, and ridicu- 
lous, which he is repeating many times to compen- 
sate for the incapacity of bitting off the right thing 
at once. These vague epithets describe nothing, 
discriminate nothing ; they express no species, are 
as applicable to ten thousand things as to this one, 
and he has before employed them on a numberless 
diversity of subjects. But he can perceive that cen- 
sure or contempt has the smartest effect, when its 
expressions have an appropriate peculiarity, which 
adapts them more precisely to the present subject 
than to another ; and he is therefore not quite satis- 
fied with the expressions which say 'about it and 
about it,' but do not say the thing itself; which 
rather show his mischievous will than prove his mis- 
chievous power. He Avants words and phrases which 
would make the edge of his clumsy meaning fall 
just where it ought. Yes, he wants "words ; for his 
meaning is sharp, he knows, if only the words would 
come. 

Discriminative censure must be conveyed, either 
in a sentence which expresses some marked and 
acute turn of thought, instead of simply applying an 
epithet, or in an epithet so specifically appropriate, 
that the single word is sufficient to fix the condem- 
nation by the mere precision with which it describes. 
But as the censurer perhaps cannot succeed in either 
pf these ways, he is willing to seek some other re- 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 125 

«onrce. And he majr often find it in cant terms, 
which have a more spiteful force, and seem to have 
more particularity of meaning, than plain, common 
words, without needing any shrewdness for their 
application. Each of these is supposed to denomi- 
nate some one class or character of scorned or rep- 
robated things, but leaves it so imperfectly defined, 
that dull malice may venture to assign to the class 
any thing which it would desire to throw under the 
odium of the denomination. Such words serve for 
a mode of collective execution, somewhat like the 
vessels which, in a season of outrage in a neighbour- 
ing country, received a promiscuous crowd of reputed 
criminals, of unexamined and dubious similarity, and 
were then sunk in the flood. You cannot wonder 
that such compendious words of decision, which can 
give quick vent to crude, impatient censure, emit 
plenty of antipathy in a few syllables, and save the 
condemner the difficulty of telling exactly what he 
wants to mean, should nave had an extensive circu- 
lation. 

Puritan was, doubtless, welcomed as a term most 
luckily invented or recalled when it began to be 
applied in contempt to a class of men, of whom the 
world was not worthy. Its peculiarity gave it almost 
such an advantage as that of a proper name among 
the lumber of common words by which they were 
described and reviled ; while yet it meant any thing, 
every thing, which the vain world disliked in the 
devout and conscientious character. To the more 
sluggish it saved, and to the more loquacious it re- 
lieved, the labour of endlessly repeating, 'demure 
rogues,' 'sanctimonious pretenders,' 'formal hypo- 
crites.' 

This term has long since lost its point, and is al- 
most forgotten ; but some word of a similar cast 
was indispensably necessary to the vulgar of both 
kinds. The vain and malignant spirit which had 
descried the elevated piety of the Puritans, sought 
about (as Milton describes the wicked one in Para- 
dise) for some convenient form in which it might 



126 OlS THE APP-LICATION OF 

again come forth to hiss at zealous Christianity ; ani 
in another lucky moment fell on the terra Methodist, 
If there is no sense in the word, as now applied, ther© 
seems however to be a great deal of aptitude and 
execution. It has the advantage of being compre- 
hensive as a general denomination, and yet oppro>= 
brious as a special badge, for every thing that igno- 
rance and folly may mistake for fanaticism, or that 
malice may wilfully assign to.it. Whenever a grave 
formalist feels it his duty to sneer at those operations 
of religion on the passions, which he never felt, h® 
has only to call them methodistical ; and notwith- 
standing that the word is both so trite and so vague, 
he feels as if he had uttered a good pungent thing. 
There is satiric smartness in the word, though there 
be none in the man. In default of keen faculty in 
the mind, it is delightful thus to find something that 
will do as well, ready bottled up in odd terms. It is 
not less convenient to a profligate, or a, coxcomb, 
whose propriety of character is to be supported by 
laughing indiscriminately at religion in every form ; 
the one, to evince that his courage is not sapped by 
conscience, the other, to make the best advantage 
of his instinct of catching at impiety as a substitute 
for sense. The word Methodism so readily sets 
aside all religion as superstitious folly, that they 
pronounce it with an air as if no more needed to be 
said. Such terms have a pleasant facility of throw- 
ing away the matter in question to scorn, without 
any trouble of making a definite, intelligible charge 
of extravagance or delusion, and atte-mpting to 
prove it. 

In politics, Jacohimsm has, of late years, been the 
brand by which all sentiments alluding to the prin- 
ciples 01 liberty, in a way that could be taken to 
censure the measures of the ascendent party in the 
State, have been consigned to execration. What a 
quantity of noisy zeal would have been quashed ira 
dead silence, if it had been possible to enforce the 
substitution of statements and definitions for this 
uiuneaaing, vulgar, but most efficacious term of re» 



tHE Ej?ITHET ROMANlTC* 1*27 

ptoach. What a number of persons have vented 
the superabundance of their loyalty, or their rancor, 
by means of this and two or three similar words^ 
■who, if by some sudden lapse of memory they had 
lost these two or three words, and a few names of 
persons, would have looked round with an idiotic 
vacancy, totally at a loss what was the suhjed of their 
anger or their approbation. One may here catch a 
glimpse of the policy of men of a superior class, in 
employing these terms as mtich as the vulgar, in 
order to keep them in active currency. If a rude 
populace, whose understandings they despise, and 
do not wish to improve, could not be excited and 
kept up to loyal animosity, but by means of a clear 
•comprehension of what they were to oppose, and 
why, a political party would have but feeble hold on 
popular zeal, and might Vociferate, and intrigue, and 
fret itself to nothing. But if a single word can be 
made the symbol of all that is absurd and execrable, 
so that the very sound of it shall irritate the passions 
•of this ignorant and scorned multitude, as dogs have 
been taught to bark at the name of a neighbouring 
tyrant, it is a commodious thing for managing these 
passions to serve the interests of those who despise, 
while they flatter, their duped auxiliaries. The 
popular passions are the imps and demons of the 
political conjurer, and he can raise them, as other 
iconjurers affect to do theirs, by terms of gibberish. 
The epithet romantic has obviously Ho similarity 
to these words in its coinage, but it is considerably 
like them in the mode and effect of its application* 
For having partly quitted the rank of plain epithets, 
it has become a convenient exploding word, of more 
special, deriding significance than the other words 
t)f its order, such as wild, extravagant, visionary. It 
is a standard expression of contemptuous despatch, 
which you have often heard pronounced with a very 
self-complacent air, that said, ' How much wiser I 
am than some people,' by the indolent and animate 
«n what they deemed impracticable, by the apes of 
prudence on what they accounted foolishly adven- 



128 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

turous, and by the slaves of custom on what startled 
them as singular. Tlie class of absurdities which it 
denominates, is left so undefined, that all the views 
and sentiments which a narrow, cold mind could not 
like or understand in an ample and fervid one, might 
be referred hither; and yet the word seems to dis-^ 
criminate their character so conclusively as to put 
them out of argument. With this cast of signifi- 
cance, and vacancy of sense, it is allowed to depre- 
ciate without being accountable ; it has the license 
of a parrot, to call names without being taxed with 
insolence. And when any sentiments are decisively 
stigmatized with this denomination, it would require 
considerable courage to rescue and defend them ; 
since the imputation which the epithet fixes on them, 
will pass upon the advocate ; and he may expect to 
be himself enrolled among the heroes of whom Don 
Quixote is the time immemorial commander-in-chief. 
At least he may be assigned to that class which oc- 
cupies a dubious frontier space between the rational 
and the insane. 

If, however, the suggestions and sketches which 
I had endeavoured to exhibit as interesting and 
practicable, were attempted to be turned into vanity 
and 'thin air' by the enunciation of this epithet, I 
would say, Pray now what do you mean by romantic f 
Have you, as you pronounce it, any precise concep- 
tion in your mind, which you can give in some other 
words, and then distinctly fix the charge ? Or is 
this a word, which, because it is often used in some 
such way as you now use it, may be left to tell its 
own meaning better than the speaker knows how to 
explain it ? Or perhaps you mean, that the ideas 
which I am expressing associate in your mind with 
the fantastic images of Romance ; and that you can- 
not help thinging of enchanted castles, encounters 
with giants, solemn exorcisms, fortunate surprises, 
knights and wizards, dragons and griffins. You 
cannot exactly distinguish what the absurdity in my 
notions is^ but you fancy what it is like. You there- 
fore condemn it, not by giving a definition, hut by 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 1^9 

applying an epithet which assigns it to a class of 
things already condemned ; for evidently the epithet 
should signify a resemblance to what we have con- 
demned in the works of romance. Well then, take 
advantage of this resemblance, to bring your censure 
into a discriminative form. Explain with precision 
the chief points in which the absurdity of the works 
of romance has consisted, and then show how the 
same distinctions characterize my notions orschemes. 
I will then renounce at once all my visionary follies, 
and be henceforward at least a very sober, if I can- 
not be a very rational man. 

The great, general characteristic of those -works 
has been the ascendency of imagination over judg- 
ment. And the description is correct as applied to 
the books, even supposing the makers of them to 
have been ever so well endowed with intellect. If 
they chose, for their amusement, to lay a sound 
judgment a while to rest, to stimulate their imagin- 
ation to the wildest extravagances, and to write them 
as they went on, the book might be nearly the same 
thing as if produced by a mind in which sound judg- 
ment had no place ; it would display imagination 
actually ascendent by the writer's voluntary indul- 
gence, though, not necessarily so by the constitution 
of his mind. It was a different case, if a writer kept 
his judgment active, amidst these extravagances, for 
the very purpose of managing and directing them to 
some particular end, of satire or sober truth. But, 
hoAvever, the romances of the ages of chivalry and 
the preceding times, were composed under neither 
of these intellectual conditions. They were not the 
productions either of men who, possessing a strong 
judgment, chose formally to forego its ex;ercise, in 
order to riot a while in scenes of extravagant fancy, 
only keeping that judgment so farawak« as to retain 
a continual consciousness in what degree they were 
extravagant; or of men designing to give effect to 
truth or malice under the disguise of a fantastic ex- 
hibition. It is evident that the authors were under 
the real and perman,ent ascendency of imagination ; 



130 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

and though they must have perceived that the oper- 
ations of this faculty went to an excess in some of 
its wildest flights, yet it might reach a very great 
degree of extravagance v/ithout their being con- 
scious of any excess at all. They could drive on 
their career through monstrous absurdities of de- 
scription and narration, v/ithout being sensible of 
inconsistency and improbability, and with an air as 
if they really reckoned on being believed. And the 
general state of intellect of the age in Avhich they 
lived seems to have been well fitted to allow them 
the utmost license. This irrationality of the roman- 
cers, and the age, provoked the powerful mind of 
Cervantes to expose it, by means of a parallel and 
still more extravagant representation of the preva- 
lence of imagination over reason, drawn in a ludi- 
crous form, by which he rendered the folly palpable 
even to the sense of that age. From that time the 
delirium abated ; the works which inspirited its rav- 
ings have been blown away almost beyond the reach 
of bibliomaniac curiosity ; and the fabrication of such 
is become a lost branch of manufacture. 

Yet romance was in some form to be retained, as 
indispensable to the craving of the human mind for 
something more vivid, more elated, and more won- 
derful, than the plain realities of life ; as a kind of 
mental balloon, for mounting into the air from the 
ground of ordinary experience. To afford this ex- 
trarational kind of luxury, it was requisite the fictions 
should still partake, in a limited degree^ of the quality 
of the earlier romance. The writers were not to be 
the dupes of wild fancy ; they were not to feign 
marvels in such a manner as if they knew no better; 
they were not wholly to lose sight of the actual sys- 
tem of things, but to keep within some measures of 
relation and proportion to it ; and yet they were re- 
(juired to disregard the strict laws of verisimilitude 
in shaping their inventions, and to extend them with 
an indulgence and daring of fancy very considerably 
beyond the bounds of probability. Without this, 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 131 

their fictions would have lost what was regarded as 
the essential quality of romance. 

If, therefore, the epithet Romantic, as now em- 
ployed for description and censure of character, 
sentiments, and schemes, is to be understood as ex- 
pressive of the quality which is characteristic of that 
class of fictions, it imputes, in substance, a great 
excess of imagination in proportion to judgment ; 
and it imputes, in particulars, such errors as naturally 
result from that excess. — It may be worth while to 
look for some of the practical exemplifications of this 
unfortunate disproportion between the two faculties. 

It should first be noted, that a defective judgment 
is not necessarily accompanied by a romantic dispo- 
sition, since the imagination may be as inert as the 
judgment is weak ; and this double and equal defi- 
ciency produces mere dulness. But it is obvious 
that a weak judgment may be accompanied with a 
great force of that faculty which can so powerfully 
assert itself even in childhood, in dreams, and in the 
state of insanity. 

Again, there may be an intellect not positively 
feeble (supposing it estimated separately from the 
other power) yet practically reduced to debility by 
a disproportionate imagination, which continually 
invades its sphere, and takes every thing out of its 
hands. And then the case is made worse by the 
unfortunate circumstance, that the exercise of the 
faculty which should be repressed, is incomparably 
more easy and delightful, than of that which should 
be promoted. Indeed the term exercise is hardly 
applicable to the activity of a faculty which can be 
active without effort, which is so far from needing 
to be stimulated to its works of magic, that it often 
scorns the most serious injunctions to forbear. It is 
not exercise, but indulgence ; and even minds pos- 
sessing much of the power of understanding, may 
be disposed to undergo but little of the labour of it, 
when amidst the ease of the deepest indolence they 
can revel in the activity of a more animating em- 
ployment. Imagination may be indulged till it usurp 



132 0^' THE APPLICATION OF 

an entire ascendency over the mind, and then every 
subject presented to that mind will excite imagina- 
tion, instead of understanding-, to work; imagination 
will throw its colours where the intellectual faculty 
ought to draw its lines ; imagination will accumulate 
metaphors where reason ought to deduce arguments ;. 
images will take the place of thoughts, and scenes 
of disquisitions. The whole mind may becorhe at 
length something like a hemisphere of cloud-scenery, 
filled with an ever-moving train of chang-ing, melting 
forms, of every colour, mingled with rainbows, me- 
teors, and an occasional gleam of pure sun-light, all 
vanishing away, the mental like this natural imagery, 
when its hour is up, without leaving any thing be- 
hind but the wish to recover the vision. And yet, 
the while, this series of visions may be mistaken for 
operations of thought, and each cloudy image be 
admitted in the place of a proposition or a reason ; 
or it may even be mistaken for something sublimer 
than thinking. The influence of this habit of dwell- 
ing on the beautiful, fallacious forms of imagination^ 
will accompany the mind into the most serious spec- 
ulations, or rather musings, on the real world, and 
what is to be done in it, and expected ; as the image, 
which the eye acquires from looking at any dazzling 
object, still appears before it wherever it turns. The 
vulgar materials that constitute the actual economy 
of the world, will rise up to its sight in fictitious 
forms, M'hich it cannot disenchant into plain reality, 
nor Avill even suspect to be deceptive. It cannot go 
about with sober, rational inspection, and ascertain 
the nature and value of all things around it. Indeed 
such a mind is not disposed to examine, with any 
careful minuteness, the real condition of things. It 
is content with ignorance, because environed with 
something more delicious than such knowledge, in 
the Paradise which imagination creates. In that 
Paradise it walks delighted, till some imperious cir^ 
cumstance of real life call it thence, and gladly es- 
capes thither again when the avocation is past. 
There, every thing is beautiful and noble as could 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 133 

be desired to form the residence of an angel. If a 
tenth part of the felicities that have been enjoyed, 
the great actions that have been performed, the be- 
neficent institntions that have been established, and 
the beautiful objects that have been seen in that 
happy region, could have been imported into this 
terrestrial place — Avhat a delightful thing, my dear 
friend, it would have been to awake each morning 
to see such a world once more. 

It is not strange that a faculty, of which the exer- 
cise is so easy and bewitching, and the scope infinite, 
should obtain a predominance over judgment, espe- 
cially in young persons, and in those who have been 
brought up, like Rasselas and his companions, in a 
state of seclusion from the sight and experience of 
the world. Indeed a considerable vigour of imagin- 
ation, though it be at the expense of a frequent pre- 
dominance over juvenile understanding, seems even 
necessary, in early life, to cause a generous expan- 
sion of the passions by giving the most lively aspect 
to the objects v/liich must attract them, in order to 
draw forth the activity of our being. It may also 
contribute to prepare the mind for the exercise of 
that faith which converses with things unseen, but 
converses with them through the medium of those 
ideal forms in which imagination presents them, and 
in which only a strong imagination can present them 
impressively.* And I should deem it the indication 
of a character not destined to excel in the liberal, 
the energetic, or the devout qualities, if I observed 
in the youthful age a close confinement of thought 
to bare truth and minute accuracy, with an entire 
aversion to the splendors, amplifications, and excur- 

* The Divine Being is the only one of tliese objects vvliich a 
Christian would wish it possible to contemplate without the aid 
of imagination ; and every reflective man has felt how difficult it 
is to apprehend even this object without the intervention of an 
image. In thinkins; of the transactions and personages of history, 
the final events of time foretold by prophecy, the state of srood 
men in another world, the superior ranks of intelligent agents, 
&c., he has often had occasion to wish his imagination much 
more vivid. 



134 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

sions of fancy. This opinion is warranted by in- 
stances of persons so distinguished in youth, who 
have become subsequently very sensible indeed, but 
dry, cold, precise, devoted to detail, and incapable 
of being carried away one moment by any inspiration 
of the beautiful or the sublime. They seem to have 
only the bare intellectual stamina of the human 
mind, without the addition of what is to give it life 
and sentiment. They give one an impression similar 
to that made by the leafless trees which you remem- 
ber our observing in winter, admirable for the dis- 
tinct exhibition of their branches and minute ramifi- 
cations so clearly defined on the sky, but destitute 
of all the green, soft 1 uxury of foliage which is requi- 
site to make a perfect tree. And even the affections 
existing in such minds seem to have a bleak abode, 
somewhat like those bare, deserted nests which you 
have often seen in such trees. 

If, indeed, the signs of this exclusive understand- 
ing indicated also such an extraordinary vigour of 
the faculty, as to promise a very great mathematician 
or metaphysician, one would perhaps be content to 
forego some of the properties which form a complete 
mind, for the sake of this pre-eminence of one of its 
endowments ; even though the person were to be 
so defective in sentiment and fancy, that, as the story 
goes of an eminent mathematician, he could read 
through a most animated and splendid epic poem, 
and on being asked what he thought of it, gravely 
reply, ' What does it prove ?' But the want of imag- 
ination is never an evidence, and perhaps but rarely 
a concomitant, of superior understanding. 

Imagination may be allowed the ascendency in 
early youth ; the case should be reversed in mature 
life ; and if it is not, a man may consider his mind 
either as not the most happily constructed, or as 
unwisely disciplined. The latter indeed is probably 
true in every such instance. 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 135 



LETTER II. 

One of the Modes of this Ascendency justly called Romantic, is, the unfounded 
Persuasion of something peculiar and extraordinary in a Person's Destiny... 
This vain Expeciation may be relative to great Talent and Achievenjent, or to 
great Felicity.. ..Tilings ardently ariticipated which not only cannot be attained, 
but would be unadapled to the Nature and Condition of Man if they could. ...A 
Person that hoped to out-do rather than imitate Gregory Lopez, the Hermit.... 
Absurd Expectations of Parents ...Utopian Anticipations of Philosophers... Prac- 
tical Absurdity of the Age of Chivalry.. ..The extravagant and exclusive Passion 
for what is Grand. 

The ascendency of imagination operates in vari- 
ous modes ; I will endeavour to distinguish those 
which may justly be called romantic. 

The extravagance of imagination in romance has 
very much consisted in the display of a destiny and 
course of life totally unlike the common condition 
of mankind. And you may have observed in living 
individuals, that one of the effects sometimes pro- 
duced by the predominance of this faculty is, a per- 
suasion in a person's own mind that he is born to 
some peculiar and extraordinary destiny, while yet 
there are no extraordinary indications in the person 
or his circumstances. There was something rational 
in the early pre-sentiment which some distinguished 
men have entertained of their future career. When 
a celebrated general of the present times exclaimed, 
after performing the common military exercise in a 
company of juvenile volunteers, 'I shall be a com- 
mander-in-chief,'* a sagacious observer of the signs 
of talents yet but partially developed, might have 
thought it indeed a rather sanguine, but probably 
not a quite absurd, anticipation. An elder and in- 
telligent associate of Milton's youth might without 
much difficulty have believed himself listening to an 
oracle, when so powerful a genius avowed to him, 
that he regarded himself as destined to produce a 
work which should distinguish the nation and the 

* Related of Moreau. 



136 ON THE APPLICATION OIP 

age. The opening of uncommon faculties may be 
sometimes attended with these anticipations, and 
may be allowed to express them, perhaps, even, as a 
stimulus, encouraged to indulge them. But in most 
instances these magnificent presumptions form, in 
the observer's eye, a ludicrous contrast with the 
situation and powers of the person that entertains 
them. And, in the event, how few such anticipations 
have proved themselves to have been the genuine 
promptings of an extraordinary mind. 

The visionary presumption of a peculiar destiny 
is entertained in more forms than that which implies 
a confidence of possessing uncommon talent. It is 
often the flattering self-assurance simply of a life of 
singular felicity. The captive of fancy fondly im- 
agines his prospect of life as a delicious vale, from 
each side of which every stream of pleasure is to 
flow down to his feet ; and while it cannot but be 
seen that innumerable evils do harass other human 
beings, some mighty spell is to protect him against 
them all. He takes no deliberate account of what 
is inevitable in the lot of humanity, of the sober 
probabilities of his own situation, or of those princi- 
ples in the constitution of his mind which are perhaps 
unfavourable to happiness. 

If this excessive imagination is combined with 
tendencies to affection, it makes a person sentimen- 
tally romantic. With a great, and what might, in a 
better endowed mind, be a just contempt of the or- 
dinary rate of attachments, both in friendship and 
love, he indulges a most assured confidence that his 
peculiar lot is to realize all the wonders of generous, 
virtuous, noble, unalienable friendship, and of en- 
raptured, uninterrupted, and unextinguishable love, 
that fiction ever talked in her dreams ; while perhaps 
a shrewd, indiflTerent observer can see nothing in 
the nativity or character of the man, or in the quali- 
ties of the human creatures that he adores, or in the 
principles on which his devotion is founded, to pro- 
mise an elevation or permanence of felicity beyond 
the destiny of common mortals. 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 137 

If u passion for variety and novelty accompanies 
this extravagant imagination, it will exclude from its 
bold sketches of future life every thing like confined 
regularity, and common, plodding occupations. It 
will suggest that /was born for an adventurer, whose 
story will one day amaze the world. Perhaps I am 
to be an universal traveller ; and there is not on the 
globe a grand city, or ruin, or volcano, or cataract, 
but I must see it. Debility of constitution, deficien- 
cy ofmeans, innumerable perils, unknown languages, 
oppressive toils, and the shortness of life, are very 
possibly all left out of the account. 

If there is in the disposition a love of what is called 
glory, and an almost religious admiration of those 
capacious and intrepid spirits, one of which has often 
decided in one perilous day the destiny of armies 
and of empires, a predominant imagination may be 
led to revel amidst the splendors of military exploit, 
and to flatter the man that he too is to be a hero, a 
great general. 

When a mind under this influence recurs to pre- 
cedents as a foundation and a warrant of its expec- 
tations, they are never the usual, but always the 
extraordinary examples, that are contemplated. An 
observer of the ordinary instances of friendship is 
perhaps heard to assert, that the sentiment is suffi- 
ciently languid in general to admit of an entire self- 
interest, of absence without pain, and of final indif- 
ference. Well, so let it be ; Damon and Pythias 
were friends of a different sort, and our friendship 
is to be like theirs. Or if the subject of musing and 
hope is the union in which love commonly results, it 
may be true and obvious enough that the generality 
of instances would not seem to tell of more than a 
mediocrity of happiness in this relation ; but a vis- 
ionary person does not live within the same world 
with these examples. The few instances which have 
been recorded of tender and never-dying enthusi- 
asm, together with the numerous ones which romance 
and poetry have created, form the class to which he 
belongs, and from whose enchanting history, except- 



138 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

ing' their misfortunes, he reasons to his own future 
experience. So too the man, whose fancy antici- 
pates political or martial achievement, allows his 
thoughts to revert continually to those names which 
a rare conjunction of talents and circumstances has 
elevated into fame ; forgetting that many thousands 
of men of great ability liave died in at least compar- 
ative obscurity, for want of situations in which to 
display themselves ; and never suspecting that him- 
self perhaps has not abilities competent to any thing 
great, if some extraordinary event were now just to 
place him in the most opportune concurrence of cir- 
cumstances. That there has been one very signal 
man to a million, more avails to the presumption 
that he shall be a signal man, than there having 
been a million to one signal man, infers a probability 
of his remaining one of the multitude. 

You will generally observe, that persons thus self- 
appointed, in either sex, to be exceptions to the 
usual lot of humanity, endeavour at a kind of consis- 
tency of character, by a great aversion to the com- 
mon modes of action and language, and an habitual 
affectation of something extraordinary. They will 
perhaps disdain regular hours, usual dresses, and 
common forms of transacting business ; this you are 
to regard as the impulse of a spirit whose high voca- 
tion requires it to renounce all signs of relation to 
vulo-ar minds. 

The epithet romantic then may be justly applied 
to those presumptions, (if entertained after the child- 
ish or very youthful age,) of a peculiarly happy or 
important destiny in "life, which are not clearly 
founded on certain palpable distinctions of character 
or situation, or which greatly exceed the sober prog- 
nostics afforded by those distinctions. It should be 
observed here that wishes merely do not constitute 
a character romantic. A person may sometimes let 
his mind wander into vain wishes for all the fine and 
strange things on earth, and yet be far too sober to 
expect any of them,. In this case however he will, 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. VS^ 

often check and reproach himself for the folly of 
entertaining the wish. 

The absurdity of such anticipations consists sim- 
ply in the improbability of their being- realized, and 
not in their objects being uncongenial with the hu- 
man mind ; but another effect oif the predominance 
of imagination may be a disposition to form schemes 
or indulge expectations essentially incongruous with 
the nature of man. Perhaps however you will say, 
What is that nature ? Is it not a mere passive thing, 
variable almost to infinity, according to climate, to 
institutions, and to the different ages of time ? Even 
taking it in a civilized state, what relation is there 
between such a form of human nature as that dis- 
played at Sparta, and, for instance, the modern soci- 
ety denominated Quakers, or the Moravian Frater- 
nity ? And how can we ascertain what is congenial 
with it or not, unless itself were first ascertained ? 
Allow me to say, that I speak of human nature in its 
most general principles only, as social, self-interest- 
ed, inclined to the wrong, slow to improve, passing 
through several states of capacity and feeling in the 
successive periods of life, and the few other such 
permanent distinctions. Any of these distinctions 
may vanish from the sight of a visionary mind, while 
forming, for itself or for others, such schemes as 
could have sprung only from an imagination become 
wayward through its excess of power. I remember, 
for example, a person, very young I confess, who 
was so enchanted with the stories of Gregory Lopez, 
and one or two more pious hermits, as almost to form 
the resolution to betake himself to some wilderness 
and live as Gregory did. At any time, the very 
word hermit was enough to transport him, like the 
witch's broomstick, to the solitary hut, which was 
delightfully surrounded by shady, solemn groves, 
mossy rocks, crystal streams, and gardens of radishes. 
While this fancy lasted, he forgot the most obvious 
of all facts, that man is not made for habitual soli- 
tude, nor can endure it without misery, except when 



140 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

transformed into a superstitious ascetic, nor probably 
even then.* 

Contrary to human nature, is the proper descrip- 
tion of those theories of education, and those flatter- 
ies of parental hope, which presume that young 
people in general may be matured to eminent wis- 
dom, and adorned with the universality of noble 
attainments, by the period at which in fact the intel- 
lectual faculty is but beginning to operate with 
any thing like clearness and force. Because some 
individuals, remarkable exceptions to the natural 
character of youth, have in their very childhood ad- 
vanced beyond the youthful giddiness, and debility 
of reason, and have displayed, at the age of perhaps 
twenty, a wonderful assemblage of all the strong 
and all the graceful endowments, it therefore only 
needs a proper system of education to make other 
young people (at least those of my family, the parent 
thinks,) be no longer what nature has always made 
youth to be. Let this be adopted, and we shall see 
multitudes at that age possessing the judgment of 
sages, or the diversified acquirements and graces of 
all-accomplished gentlemen and ladies. And what, 
pray, are the beings which are to become, by the 
discipline of eight or ten years, such finished exam- 
ples of various excellence ? Not, surely, these boys 
here, that love nothing so much as tops, marbles, 
and petty mischief — and those girls, that have yet 
attained but few ideas beyond the dressing of dolls? 
Yes, even these ! 

The same charge of being unadapted to man, 
seems applicable to the speculations of those phi- 
losophers and philanthropists, who have eloquently 
displayed the happiness, and asserted the practica- 
bility, of an equality of property and modes of life 

* Lopez indeed was ofteti visited by pious persons who songht 
his instructions; this was a great modification of the loneliness, 
and of the trial involved in enduring it : but my hermit was fond 
of the idea of an uninhabited island, or of a wilderness so deep 
that these gtood people would not have been able to come at him, 
without a more formidable pilgrimage than was ever yet made 
for the sake of obtaining instruction. 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 141 

throughout society. Those who realJy anticipated 
or projected the practical trial of the system, must 
have forgotten on what planet those apartments were 
built, or those arbours were growing, in which they 
were contemplating such visions. For in these vis- 
ions they beheld the ambition of one part of the 
inhabitants, the craft or audacity of another, the 
avarice of another, the stupidity or indolence of 
another, and the selfishness of almost all, as mere 
adventitious faults, superinduced on the character 
of the species, and instantly flying off at the approach 
of better institutions, which shall prove, to the con- 
fusion of all the calumniators of human nature, that 
nothing is so congenial to it as industry, moderation, 
and disinterestedness. It is at the same time but 
just to acknowledge, that many of them have admit- 
ed the necessity of such a grand transformation as 
to make man another being previously to the adop- 
tion of the system. This is all very well : when the 
proper race of men shall come from Utopia, the sys- 
tem and polity may very properly come along with 
them ; or these sketches of it, prepared for them by 
us, may be carefully preserved here, in volumes 
more precious than those of the Sibyls, against their 
arrival. Till then, the sober observers of the human 
character will read these beautiful theories as ro- 
mances, adapted to excite sarcastic ridicule in their 
splenetic hours, when they are disgusted with human 
nature, and to produce deep melancholy in their 
benevolent ones, when they commiserate it. 

It hardly needs to be said, that the character of 
the age of chivalry may be cited as an illustration of 
the same kind. One of its most prominent distinc- 
tions was, an immense incongruity with the simplest 
principles of human nature." For instance, in the 
concern of love : a generous young man became 
attached to an interesting young woman — interest- 
ing as he believed, from having once seen her ; for 
probably he never heard her speak. His heart would 
naturally prompt him to seek access to the object 
whose society, it told him, would make him happy; 



142 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

and if in a great measure debarred from that society, 
he would surrender himself to the melting mood of 
the passion, in the musings of pensive retirement. 
But this Avas not the way. He must abandon for 
successive years her society and vicinity, and every 
soft indulgence of feeling, and rush boldly into all 
sorts of hardships and perils, deeming no misfortune 
so great as not to find constant occasions of hazard- 
ing his life among the roughest foes, or, if he could 
find or fancy them, the strangest monsters ; and all 
this, not as the alleviation of despair, but as the 
courtship of hope. And when he was at length 
betrayed to flatter himself that such a probation, 
through every kind of patience and danger, might 
entitle him to throw his trophies and himself at her 
imperial feet, it was very possible she might be 
affronted that he had presumed to be still alive. It 
is unnecessary to refer to the other parts of the in- 
stitution of chivalry, the whole system of which 
would seem more adapted to any race of beings ex- 
hibited in the Arabian Nights, or to any still wilder 
creation of fancy, than to a community of creatures 
appointed to live by cultivating the soil, anxious to 
avoid pain and trouble, seeking the reciprocation of 
affection on the easiest terms, and nearest to happi- 
ness in regular pursuits, and quiet, domestic life. 

One cannot help reflecting here, how amazingly 
accommodating this human nature has been to all 
institutions but wise and good ones ; insomuch that 
an order of life and manners, formed in the wildest 
deviation from all plain sense and native instinct, 
could be practically adopted, to some extent, by 
those who had rank and courage enough, and adored 
and envied by the rest of mankind. Still, the genu- 
ine tendencies of nature have survived the strange 
but transient modifications of time, and remain the 
same after the age of chivalry is gone far toward 
that oblivion, to which you will not fail to wish that 
many other institutions might speedily follow it. 
Forsrive the prolixity of these illustrations, intended 
to show, that schemes and speculations respecting 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 143 

the interests either of an individual or of society, 
which are inconsistent with the natural constitution 
of man, may, except where it should be reasonable 
to expect some supernatural intervention, be denom- 
inated romantic. 

The tendency to this species of romance, may be 
caused, or very greatly promoted, by an exclusive 
taste for what is grand, a disease to which some few 
minds are subject. They have no pleasure in con- 
templating the system of things as the Creator has 
ordered it, a combination of great and little, in which 
the groat is much more dependent on the little, than 
the little on the great. They cut out the grand 
objects, to dispose them into a world of their own. 
All the images in their intellectual scene must be 
colossal and mountainous. They are constantly 
seeking what is animated into heroics, what is ex- 
panded into immensity, what is elevated above the 
stars. But for great empires, great battles, great 
enterprises, great convulsions, great geniuses, great 
temples, great rivers, there would be nothing worth 
naming in this part of the creation.* All that be- 
longs to connexion, gradation, harmony, regularity, 
and utility, is thrown out of sight behind these forms 
of vastness. The influence of this exclusive taste 
will reach into the system of projects and expecta- 
tions. The man will wish to summon the world to 
throw aside its tame, accustomed pursuits, and adopt 
at once more magnificent views and objects, and 
will be indignant at mankind that they cannot or 
will not be sublime. Impatient of little means and 
slow processes, he will wish for violent transitions 
and entirely new institutions. He will perhaps de- 
termine to set men the example of performing some- 
thing great, in some ill-judged, sanguine project in 
which" he will fail ; and, after being ridiculed by 

* Jiisf as, to emplny a humble comparison, a votary of fashion, 
after visitinira crowded public place which happened at that time 
not to be graced by the presence of many people of consequence, 
tells you, with an affected tone, 'There was not a creature there.' 



144 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

society, both for the scheme and its catastrophe, 
may probably abandon all the activities of life, and 
become a misanthrope the rest of his days. 



LETTER III. 

The Epithet applicable to Hopes and Projects inconsistent with the known P..elatioB» 
between Ends and Means. ..Reckoning' on happy Casualties,.,. Musrog on Instan- 
ces of good Luck.... Novels go, mere tTian half the Length of the- older Romance 
in promoting this pernicious Tendency of the Mind... .Specimen of wluit they do 

in this way Fancy magnifies the smallest Means into an apparent Competence 

to tlie greatest Ends. ...This delusive Calculation apt to be- admitted in Scliemes 

of Benevolence. ...Projects for civilizing Savage Nations... .Extravagant Expecta.- 

tions of the Efficacy of direct Instruction, in the^ Lessons of Education, and in 
Preaching.. ..Reformers apt to overrate the Power of Means. ...Tlie Fancy about 

the Omnipotence of Truth. .....Our Expectations ought to be limited by what we 

actually see and know of human Nature.. ...Estimate of that Nature. ...Prevalence 

of Passion and Appetite against Conviction. 

One of the most obvious distinctions of the works 
of romance is, an utter violation of all the relations 
between ends and means. Sometimes such ends 
are proposed as seem quite dissevered from means, 
inasmuch as there are scarcely any supposable 
means on earth to accomplish them : but no matter ; 
if we cannot ride we must swim, if we cannot swim 
we must fly : the object is effected by a mere poet- 
ical omnipotence that wills it. And very often 
practicable objects are attained by means the most 
fantastic, improbable, or inadequate ; so that there 
is scarcely any resemblance between the method in 
which they are accomplished by the dexterity of 
fiction, and that in which the same things must be 
attempted in the actual economy of the world. Now, 
when you see this absurdity of imagination prevail- 
ing in the calculations of real life, you may justly 
apply the epithet, romantic. 

Indeed a strong and habitually indulged imagina- 
tion may be so absorbed in the end, if it is not a 
concern of absolute, immediate urgency, as for a 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 145 

while quite to forget the process of attainment. It 
has incantations to dissolve the rigid laws of time 
and distance, and place a man in something so like 
the presence of his object, that he seems half to 
possess it; and it is hard, while occupying the verge 
of Paradise, to be flung far back in order to find or 
make a path to it, with the slow and toilsome steps 
of reality. Jn the luxury of promising himself that 
what he wishes will by some means take place at 
some time, he forgets that he is advancing no nearer 
to it — except on the wise and patient calculation 
that he must, by the simple movement of growing 
older, be coming somewhat nearer to every event 
that is yet to Iiappen to him. He is like a traveller, 
who, amidst his indolent musings in some soft bower, 
where he has sat down to be shaded a little while 
from the rays of noon, falls asleep, and dreams he is 
in the midst of all the endearments of home, insen- 
sible that there are many hills and dales for him yet 
to traverse. But the traveller Avill awake ; so too 
will the man of fancy, and if he has the smallest 
capacity of just reflection, he will regret to have 
wasted in reveries the time which ought to have 
been devoted to practical exertions. 

But even though reminded of the necessity of in- 
tervening means, the man of imagination will often 
be tempted to violate their relation with ends, by 
permitting himself to dwell on those happy casualties, 
which the prolific sorcery of his mind will promptly 
figure to him as the very things, if they would but 
occur, to accomolish his wishes at once, without the 
toil of a sober process. If they would occur — and 
things as strange mis;ht happen : he reads in the 
newspapers that an estate often thousand per annum 
was lately adjudged to a man who was working on 
the road.' He has even heard of people dreaming 
that in such a place something valuable was con- 
cealed ; and that, on searching or digging that place, 
they found an old earthen pot^ full of gold and silver 
pieces of the times of good King Charles the Martyr. 
Mr. B. was travellinof by the mail-coach, in which 



146 ON THE APPLICATION 01? 

he met with a most interesting young lady, whom 
he had never seen before ; they were mutually de- 
lighted, and were married in a few weeks. Mr. C, 
a man of great merit in obscurity, was walking across 
a field Avhen Lord D., in chase of a fox, leaped over 
the hedge, and fell off his horse into a ditch. Mf. 
C, with the utmost alacrity and kind solicitude, 
helped his lordship out of the ditch, and recovered 
for him his escaped horse. The consequence was 
inevitable ; his lordship, superior to the pride of 
being mortified to have been seen in a condition so 
unlucky for giving the impression of nobility, com- 
menced a friendship with Mr. C. and introduced him 
into honourable society and the road to fortune. A 
very ancient maiden lady of a large fortune happen- 
ing to be embarrassed in a crowd, a young clergyman 
offered her his arm, and politely attended her home ; 
his attention so captivated her, that she bequeathed 
to him, soon after, her whole estate, though she had 
many poor relations. 

That class of fictitious works called novels, though 
much more like real life than the romances which 
preceded them, (and which are recently, with some 
alterations, partly come into vogue agam,) is yet full 
of these lucky incidents and adventures, which are 
introduced as the chief means toward the ultimate 
success. A young man without fortune, for instance, 
is precluded from making his addresses to a young 
female in a superior situation, whom he believes not 
indifferent to nim, until he can approach her with 
such worldly advantages as it might not be impru- 
dent or degrading for her to accept. Now how is 
this to be accomplished ? — Why, I suppose, by the 
exertion of his talents in some fair and practicable 
department ; and perhaps the lady, besides, will 
generously abdicate for his sake some of the trap- 
pings and luxuries of rank. You really suppose this 
is the plan? I am sorry you have so much less 
genius than a novel-writer. This young man has 
an uncle, who has been absent a long time, nobody 
knew where, except the young man's lucky stars. 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 147 

During his absence, the old uncle has gained a large 
fortune, with which he returns to his native land, at 
a time most opportune for every one, but a highway- 
man, who, attacking him in a road through a wood, 
is frightened away by the young hero, who happens 
to come there at the instant, to rescue and recognise 
his uncle, and to be in return recognised and made 
the heir to as many thousands as the lady or her 
family could wish. — Now what is the intended im- 
pression of all this on the reader's mind ? Is he to 
think it very likely that he too has some old uncle, or 
acquaintance at least, returning with a shipload of 
wealth from the East Indies ; and very desirable that 
the highwayman should make one such attempt 
more ; and very certain that in that case he shall be 
there in the nick of time to catch all that fortune 
sends ? One's indignation is excited at the immoral 
tendency of such lessons to young readers, who are 
thus taught to regard all sober, regular plans for 
compassing an object with disgust or despondency, 
and to muse on in)probabi]ities till they become 
foolish enough to expect them, and to be melancholy 
Avhen they find they may expect them in vain. It 
is unpardonable that these pretended instructers by 
example should thus explode the calculations and 
exertions of manly resolution, destroy the connexion 
between ends and means, and make the rewards of 
virtue so depend on chance, that if the reader does 
not either regard the whole fable with contempt, or 
promise himself he shall receive the favours of for- 
tune in some similar way, he must close the book 
with the conviction that he may hang or drown him- 
self as soon as he pleases ; that is to say, unless he 
has learnt from some other source a better morality 
and religion than these books will ever teach him. 

Another deception in respect to means, is the fa- 
cility with which fancy passes along the train of 
them, and reckons to their ultimate effect at a glance, 
without resting at the successive stages, and con- 
sidering the labours and hazards of the protracted 
process from each point to the next. If a, given 



148 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

number of years are allowed requisite for the ac- 
complishment of an object, the romantic mind vaults 
from one last day of December to another, and seizes 
at once the whole product of all the intermediate 
days, without condescending to recollect that the 
sun never shone yet on three hundred and sixty-five 
days at once, and that they must be slowly told and 
laboured one by one. If a favourite plan is to be 
accomplished by means of a certain large amount of 
property, which is to be produced from what is at 
present a very small one, the calculations of a san- 
guine mind can change shillings into guineas, and 
guineas into hundreds of pounds, incomparably faster 
than, in the actual experiment, these lazy shillings 
can be compelled to improve themselves into guin- 
eas, and the guineas into hundreds of pounds. You 
remember the noble calculation of Alnaschar on his 
basket of earthen ware, which was so soon to obtain 
him the Sultan's daughter. 

Where imagination is not delusive enough to em- 
body future casualties as effective means, it may yet 
represent very inadequate ones as competent. In a 
well-balanced mind, no conception will grow into a 
favourite purpose, unaccompanied by a process of 
the understanding, deciding its practicability by an 
estimate of the means ; in a mind under the influ- 
ence of fancy, this is a subordinate after-task. By 
the time that this comes to be considered, the pro- 
jector is too much enamoured of an end that is 
deemed to be great, to abandon it because the means 
are suspected to be little. But then they must cease 
to appear little ; for there must be an apparent pro- 
portion between the means and the end. Well, 
trust the whole concern to this plastic faculty, and 
presently every insisrnificant particle of means, and 
every petty contrivance for their management, will 
swell into magnitude ; pigmies and Lilliputians with 
their tiny arrows will soon grow up into giants 
wielding spears; and the diffident consciousness 
which was at first somewhat afraid to measure the 
plan against the object, will give place to a generous 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 



149 



scorn of the timidity of doubting. The mind will 
most ingeniously place the apparatus between its eye 
and the object at a distance, and be delighted to find 
that the one looks as large as the other. 

The consideration of the deluded calculations on 
the effect of insufficient means, would lead to a wide 
variety of particulars ; I will only touch slightly on 
a few. Various projects of a benevolent order would 
come under this charge. Did you ever listen to the 
discussion of plans for the civilization of barbarous 
nations without the intervention of conquest? I 
have, with interest and with despair.* That very 
many millions of the species should form only a bru- 
tal adjunct to civilized and enlightened man, is a 
melancholy thing, notwithstanding the whimsical 
attempts of some ingenious men to represent the 
state of wandering savages as preferable to every 
other condition of life ; a state for which, no doubt, 
they would have been sincerely glad to abandon 
their fame and proud refinements. But where are 
the means to reclaim these wretched beings into the 
civilized family of man ? A few examples indeed 
are found in history, of barbarous tribes being form- 
ed into well-ordered and considerably enlightened 
states by one man, who began the attempt without any 
power but that of persuasion, and perhaps delusion. 
There are other instances, of the success obtained by 
a small combination of men employing the same 
means ; as in the great undertaking of the JesJiits 
in South America. But have not these wonderful 
facts been far too few to be made a standard for the 
speculations of sober men ? And have they not also 
come to us with too little explanation to illustrate 
any general principles ? To me it appears extremely 
difficult to comprehend how the means recorded by 
historians to have been employed by some of the 
unarmed civilizers, could have produced so great an 
effect. In observing the half-civilized condition of a 
large part of the population of these more improved 

* I here place out of view that religion by which Omnipolence 
will at iength transform the world. 



150 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

countries, and in reading what travellers describe of 
the state and dispositions of the various orders of 
savages, it would seem: a presumption unwarranted 
by any thing we ever saw of the powers of the hu- 
man mind to suppose that any manner any ten men 
now on earth, if landed and left on a^ savage coast^ 
would be able to transform a multitude of stupid or 
ferocious tribes into a community of mild intelligence 
and regular industry.. We are therefore led to be- 
lieve that the few unaccoiintable instances conspic- 
uous in the history of the world,, of the success of 
one or a few men in this work, must have been the 
result of such a combination of favourable circum- 
stances, co-operating with their genius and perse- 
verancOj as no other man can hope to experience^ 
Such events seem like Joshua's arresting the sun 
and moon, things that have been done, but can be 
done no more. Pray, which of you, I should say, 
could expect to imitate with success, or indeed 
would think it right if be could, the deception of 
Manco Capac, and awe a wild multitude into order 
by a commission from the sun ? What would be 
your first expedient in the attempt to substitute that 
regularity and constraint which they hate, for that 
lawless liberty which they love ? How could you 
reduce them to be conscious, or incite them to be 
proud, of those wants, for being subject to which 
they would regard you as their inferiors; wants of 
which, unless they could comprehend the refinement, 
they must necessarily despise the debility ? By 
what magic are you to render visible and palpable 
any part of the world of science or of abstraction, to 
beings who have hardly words to denominate even 
their sensations ? And by what concentrated force 
of all kinds of magic together, that Egypt or Chaldea 
ever pretended, are you to introduce humanity and 
refinement among such creatures as the Northern 
Indians, described by Mr. Heame ? If an animated 
young y>hilanthropist still zealously maintained that 
it might be done, I should be amused to think how 
that warm imagination would be quelled, if h.e wem 



tHt £l»ITHEf ROH^IAISTIC. 151 

'\:)'briged to make the practical trial. It is easy for 
him to be romantic \vhile enlivened by the inter- 
course of cultivated society, while reading of the 
tidritrivances and "the patience of ancient lesfislators, 
'or while infected with the enthusiasm of poetry. 
He feels as W he could be the moral conqueror of a 
'continent. He becomes a Hercules amidst imagin- 
ary labours ; he traverses untired, while in his room, 
wide tracts of the wilderness ; he surrounds himself 
with savage men, without either trembling or re- 
"volting at their aspects or fierce exclamations ; he 
•makes eloquent speeches to them, though he knows 
not a word of their language, which language indeed, 
if he did know it, would perhaps be found totally 
incapable of eloquence ; they listen with the deepest 
attention, are convinced of the necessity of adopting 
new habits of life, and speedilv soften into humanity, 
and brighten into wisdom. But he would become 
sober enough, if compelled to travel a thousand miles 
through the desert, or over the snoAv, with some of 
these subjects of his lectures and legislation ; to 
accompany them in a hunting excursion ; to choose 
in a stormy night between exposure in the open air 
and the smoke and grossness of their cabins ; to 
observe the intellectual faculty narrowed almost to 
a point, limited to a scanty number of the meanest 
class of ideas ; to find by repeated experiments that 
his kind of ideas could neither reach 'their under- 
standing nor excite their curiosity ; to see the rav- 
enous appetite of wolves succeeded for a season by 
a stupidity insensible even to the few interests which 
kindle the utmost ardour of a savage ; to witness 
loathsome habits occasionally diversified by abomi- 
nable ceremonies ; or to be for once the spectator 
of some of the circumstances which accompany the 
wars of savages. 

But there are many more familiar illustrations ol 
the extravagant estimate of means. One is, the 
expectation of far too much from mere direct instruc- 
tion. This is indeed so general, that it will hardly 
be termed romantic, except in the most excessive 



352 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

instances. Observe it, however, a moment in the 
concern of education. Nothing seems more evident 
than the influence of external circumstances, distinct 
from the regular discipline of the parent or tutor, in 
forming the character of youth. And nothing seems 
more evident than that direct instruction, though an 
useful ally to the influence of these circumstances 
when they are auspicious, is a feeble counteractor if 
they are malignant. And yet this mere instruction 
is enough in the account of thousands of parents, to 
lead the youth to wisdom and happiness ; even that 
very youth whom the united influence of almost all 
things else which he is exposed to see, and hear, 
and participate, is drawing with the unrelaxing grasp 
of a fiend to destruction. 

A too sanguine opinion of the efficacy of instruc- 
tion, has sometimes been entertained by those who 
teach from the pulpit. Till the dispensations of a 
better age shall be opened on the world, the measure 
of effect which may reasonably be expected from 
preaching, is to be determined by a view of the vis- 
ible effects which are actually produced on congre- 
gations from week to week ; and this view is far 
from flattering. One might appeal to preachers in 
general — What striking improvements are apparent 
in your societies ? When you inculcate charity on 
the Sunday, do the misers in your congregations 
liberally open their chests and purses to the distress- 
ed on Monday ? Might I not ask as well, whether 
the rocks and trees renlly did move at the voice of 
Orpheus ? Aft^r you have unveiled even the scenes 
of eternity to the gay and frivolous, do you find in 
more than some "rare instances a dignified seri- 
ousness take place of their follies ? What is the 
eftect, on the elegant, splendid professors of Chris- 
tianity, of your inculcation of that solemn interdiction 
of their habits, 'Be not conformed to this world ?* 
Yet, notwithstanding this melancholy state of facts, 
some preachers, from the persuasion of a mysterious 
apostolic sacredness in the office, or from a vain 
estimate of their personal talents, or from mista,king 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 153 

the applause with which the preacher has been flat" 
tered, for the proof of a salutary effect on the minds 
of the hearers, and some from a much worthier cause, 
the affecting influence of sacred truth on their own 
minds, have been inclined to anticipate immense 
effects from their public ministrations, Melancthon 
was a romantic youth when he began to preach. 
He expected that all must be inevitably and imme- 
diately persuaded, when they should hear what he 
had to tell them. But he soon discovered as he said, 
that old Adam was too hard for young Melancthon, 
In addition to the grand fact of the depravity of the 
human heart, there are so many causes operating 
injuriously through the week on the characters of 
those who form a congregation, that a thoughtful 
man often feels a melancholy emotion amidst his 
religious addresses, from the reflection that he is 
making a feeble effort against a powerful evil, a sin-^ 
gle effort against a combination of evils, a temporary 
and transient effort against evils of continual opera-r 
tion, and a purely intellectual effort against evils, 
many of which act on the senses. When the preach^ 
er considers the effect naturally resulting from the 
sight of so many bad examples, the communications 
of so many injurious acquaintances, and hearing and 
talking of what would be, if written, so many volumes 
of vanity and nonsense, the predominance of fash- 
ionable dissipation in one class, and of vulgarity in 
another ; he must indeed imagine himself endowed 
with the power of a super-human eloquepce, if the 
instructions, expressed in an hour or two on the 
Sabbath, and soon forgotten, as he might know, by 
most of his hearers, are to leave something in the 
mind, which shall be through the week the effica- 
cious repellent to the contact and contamination of 
all these forces of mischief. But how soon he would 
cease to imagine such a power in his exhortations, 
if the greater number of his hearers could sincerely 
and accurately tell him, toward the end of the week, 
in what degree these admonitions had affected and 
governed them, in opposition to their corrupt ten^! 
14 



154 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

dencies and their temptations. What would be, in 
the five or six days, the number of the moments and 
the instances in which these instructions would be 
proved to have been effectual, compared with the 
whole number of moments and circumstances to 
which they were justly applicable ? How often, 
while hearing such a week's detail of the lives of a 
considerable proportion of the congregation, a man 
would have occasion to say, By whose instructions 
were these persons influenced theji, in that neglect 
of devout exercises, that excess of levity, that waste 
of time, that avowed contempt of religion, that lan- 



guage of profaneness and imprecation, those contri 
vances of selfishness, those paroxysms of passion, 
that study of sensuality, or that general and obdurate 



depravity ? 

But the preacher whom I deem too sanguine, may 
tell me, that it is not by means of any force which 
he can throw into his religious instructions, that he 
expects them to be efficacious ; But that he believes 
a divine energy will accompany what is undoubtedly 
a message from heaven. I am pleased with the 
piety, and the sound judgment, (as I esteem it,) with 
which he expects the conversion of careless or har- 
dened men from nothing less than the operation of a 
power strictly divine. But I would remind him, that 
the probability, at any given season, that such a 
power will intervene, must be in proportion to the 
frequency or infrequency with which its intervention 
is actually manifested in the general course of ex- 
perience. In other words, it is in proportion to the 
number of happy transformations of character which 
we see taking place under the efficacy of religious 
truth. 

Reformers in general are very apt to overrate the 
power of the means by which their theories are to 
be realized. They are forever introducing the story 
of Archimedes, who was to have moved the world if 
he could have found any second place on which to 
plant his engines ; and imagination discloses to mor- 
al and political projectors a cloud-built and truly 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 155 

extramundane position, which they deem to be ex- 
actly such a convenience in their department as the 
mathematician, whose converse with demonstrations 
had saved part of his reason from being run away 
with by his fancy, confessed to be a desideratum in 
his. This terra firma is called the Omnipotence of 
Truth. 

It is presumed, that truth must at length, by the 
force of indefatigable inquiry, become generally 
victorious, and that all vice, being the result of a 
mistaken judgment of the nature or the means of 
happiness, must therefore accompany the exit of 
error. Of course, it is presumed of the present times 
also, or of those immediately approaching, that in 
every society and every mind where truth is clearly 
admitted, the reforms which it dictates must sub- 
stantially follow. I have the most confident faith 
that the empire of truth, advancing under a far 
mightier agency than mere philosophic inquiry, is 
appointed to irradiate the latter ages of a dark and 
troubled world ; and, on the strength of prophetic 
intimations, I anticipate its coming sooner, by at 
least a thousand centuries, than a disciple of that 
philosophy which rejects revelation, as the first proud 
step toward the improvement of the world, is war- 
ranted, by a view of the past and present state of 
mankind, to predict The assurance from the same 
authority is the foundation for believing, that when 
that sacred empire shall overspread the world, the 
virtue of character will correspond to the illumina- 
tions of understanding. But in the present state of 
the moral system, our expectations of the effect of 
truth on the far greater number of the persons who 
shall admit its convictions,, have no right to exceed 
the rules of probability which are taught by facts. 
It would be gratifying no doubt to believe, that the 
several powers in the human constitution are so 
combined, that to gain the judgment would be to 
secure the whole man. And if all history, and all 
memory of our observation and experience, could 
be merged in Lethe, it might be believed, perhaps a 



156 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

few hours. How could an attentive observer believe 
it longer ? Is it not obvious that very many persons, 
with a most absolute conviction, by their own ingen- 
uous avowal, that one certain course of action is 
virtue and happiness, and another, vice and misery, 
do yet habitually choose the latter? It is not irn- 
probable that several millions of human beings are 
at this very hour thus acting in violation of the laws 
of goodness, while those laws are clearly admitted, 
not only as impositions of moral authority, but as the 
vital principles of their own true self-interest.* And 
do not even the best men confess a fierce discord 
between the tendencies of their nature, and the dic- 
tates of that truth which they revere ? They say 
with St. Paul, ' That which I do, I allow not ; for 
what 1 would, that I do not ; but what I hate, that I 
do; to will is present with me, but how to perform 
that which is good, I find not ; the good that I would, 
that I do not, and the evil which I would not, that I 
do.' Every serious self-observer recollects instan- 
ces, in which a temptation, exactly addressed to his 
passions or his habits, has prevailed in spite of the 
sternest interdict of his judgment, pronounced at the 
very crisis. Perhaps the most awful sanctions by 
which the judgment can ever enforce its authority, 
_were distinctly brought to his view at the same mo- 

* The criminnl himself has the clearest consciousness that he 
violates the dictates of his jiirigirtent. How triHiuji is ihe subtilty 
wiiicli affects to show that he does not violate them, by alleging, 
that every act of choice must he preceded by a defeniiination of 
the judgment, and that therefore in choosing an evil, a man does 
at the time judge it to he on some account preferable, though he 
may know it to be wrong. It is not to be denied that tiie choice 
does i'liply such a conclusion of the judgment Rut this conclu- 
sion is rrrade according to a narrow and ^subordinate scale of esti- 
mating good and evil, while the mind is conscious that, judging 
according to a larger scale, the opposite conclusion is true. It 
judges a thing better for immediate pleasure, which it knows to 
be worse for ultimate advantage. The criminal therefore may 
be correctly said to act accordimj to his judgment, in choosing it 
for present pleasure. But since it is the great office of the judg- 
ment to decide what is wisest and best on ihe whole, the man may 
truly be said to act acrainst. his judgment, who acts in oppositioiA 
to the conclusion which it forms on this greater scal^. 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 157 

ment with its convictions. In the subsequent hour 
he had to reflect, that the ideas of God, of a future 
account, of a world of retribution, could not prevent 
him from violating his conscience. That he did not 
dwell deliberately on these ideas, is nothing against 
my argument. It is in the nature of the passions 
not to permit the mind to fix strongly and durably 
on those considerations which oppose and condemn 
them. But what greater power than this, is requi- 
site for their fatal triumph ? If the passions can thus 
prevent the mind from strongly fixing on the most 
awful considerations when distinctly presented, they 
can destroy the efficacy of that truth which presents 
them. Truth can do no more than discriminate the 
good from the evil before us, and declare the conse- 
quences of our choice. When this is inefficacious, 
its power has failed. And no fact can be more evi- 
dent than that its power often thus fails. I should 
compassionate the self-complacency of the man who 
was not conscious he had to deplore many violations 
of his own clearest convictions. And in trying the 
efficacy of truth on others, it would be found, in 
numberless instances, that to have informed and 
convinced a man, may be but little toward emanci- 
pating him from the habits which he sincerely ac- 
knowledges to be wrong. There is then no such 
inviolable connexion as some men have supposed 
between the admission of truth, and consequent ac- 
tion. And therefore, however great is the value of 
truth, the expectations that presume its omnipotence, 
without extraordinary intervention, are romantic de- 
lusion. 

You will observe that in this case of trying the 
efficacy of the truth on others, I have supposed the 
great previous difficulty of presenting it to the un- 
derstanding so luminously as to impress irresistible 
conviction, to be already overcome ; though the ex- 
perimental reformer will find this introductory work 
such an arduous undertaking, that he will be often 
tempted to abandon it as a hopeless one. 



158 ON THE APPLICATION OF 



LETTER IV. 

Christianity the ^rand appointed Means of reforming the World.... But though tht 
Religion itself be a Communication from Heaven, the Administration of it by 
human Agents is to be considered as a merely human Means, excepting so far 
as a special Divine Energy is made to accompany it. ...Its comparatively small 
success proves in what an extremely limited measure that Energy accompanies 
it.... Impotence of Man to do what it leaves undone ...Irrational to expect from 
its progressive Administration a measure of success indefinitely surp^isbing the 
present State of its Operations, till we see some Signs of a great Change in the 
Divine Government of the World.... Folly of Projects to reform Mankind which 

discl.iira Religion Nothing in human Nature to meet and give effect to the 

Schemes and Expedients of the Moral Revolutionist.. .^Wretched State of that 

Nature Sample of the absurd Estimates of its condition by the irreligious 

Menders of Society. 

As far as the gloomy estimate of means and of 
plans for the amendment of mankind may appear to 
involve the human administration of the religion of 
Christ, I am anxious not to seem to fail in justice to 
that religion by which I entirely believe, and rejoice 
to believe, that every improvement of a sublime or- 
der yet awaiting our race must be effected. And I 
trust I do not fail, since I keep in my mind a most 
clear distinction between Christianity itself as a 
divine thing, and the administration of it by a system 
of merely human powers and means. These means 
are indeed of divine appointment, and to a certain 
extent are accompanied by a special divine agency. 
But how far this agency accompanies them is seen 
in the measure of their success. Where that stands 
arrested, the fact itself is the proof that the superior 
operation does not go further with these means. 
There it stops, and leaves them to accomplish, if 
they can, what remains. And oh, what remains ? If 
the general transformation of mankind into such 
persons as could be justly deemed true disciples of 
Christ, were regarded as the object of his religion, 
how mysteriously small a part of that object has this 
divine agency ever yet been exerted to accomplish ! 
And then, the awful and immense remainder evinces 
the inexpressible imbecility of the means, when left 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 159 

to be applied as a mere human administration. I 
need not illustrate its incompetency by citing the 
vast majority, the numerous millions of Christendom, 
nor the millions of even our own country, on whom 
this religion has no direct influence. I need not 
observe how many of these have heard or read the 
evangelic declaration ten thousand times, nor with 
what perfect insensibility vast numbers can receive 
its most luminous ideas, and most cogent enforce- 
ments, which are but like arrows meeting the shield 
of Ajax. Probably each religious teacher can re- 
collect, besides his general experience, very partic- 
ular instances, in which he has set himself to exert 
the utmost force of his mind, in reasoning, illustration, 
and serious appeal, to impress some one important 
idea, on some one class of persons to whom it was 
most specifically applicable ; and has perceived the 
plainest indications," both at the instant and immedi- 
ately after, that it was an attempt of the same kind 
as that of demolishing a tower by attacking it with 
pebbles. Nor do I need to observe how generally, 
if a momentary impression is made, it is forgotten 
the following hour. 

A man convinced of the truth and supreme excel- 
lence of Christianity, yet entertaining a more flat- 
tering notion of the reason and morardispositions of 
man than the judgment which that religion passes 
upon them, may be very reluctant to admit that there 
is such a fatal disproportion between the apparatus, 
if I may call it so, of the Christian means as left to 
be applied by mere human energy, and the object 
which is to be attempted with them. But how is he 
to avoid it ? Will he, in this one excepted instance, 
reject the method of inference from facts ? He can- 
not look upon the world of facts and contradict the 
representation in the preceding paragraph, unless 
his fancy is so illusive as to interpose a vision, an 
absolute dream, between his eyes and the obvious 
reality. He cannot affirm that there are not an im- 
mense number of persons, even educated persons, 
receiving the Christian declarations with indiffer- 



160 ON THE APPLICATION OP 

ence, or rejecting them with contempt mingled with 
their carelessness. The right means are applied, 
and with all the force that human effort can give 
them, but with a suspension, in these instances, of 
the divine agency, — and this is the effect! While 
the fact stands out so palpably to view, I am doomed 
to listen with wonder, when some of the professed 
believers and advocates of the gospel are avowing 
high anticipations of its progressive efficacy, chiefly 
or solely by means of the intrinsic force which it 
carries as a rational address to rational creatures. I 
cannot help inquiring what length of time is to be 
allowed for the experiment, which is to prove the 
adequacy of the means independently of an extra- 
ordinary intervention. Nor can it be impertinent to 
ask what is, thus far, the state of the experiment and 
the success, among those who reject the idea of such 
a divine agency, as a tenet of fanaticism. Might it 
not be prudent, to moderate the expressions of con- 
tempt for the persuasion which excites an importu- 
nity for extraordinary influence from the Almighty, 
till the success without it shall be greater ? The 
utmost arrogance of this contempt will venture no 
comparison between the respective success, in the 
conversion of vain and wicked men, of the Christian 
means as administered by those who implore and 
rely upon this special agency of Heaven, and by 
those who deny any such operation on the mind ; 
deny it in sense and substance, whatever accommo- 
dating phrases they may sometimes employ. Indeed, 
has there been any success at all, of that high order, 
to vindicate the calculations of this latter class from 
the imputation of all that should be meant by the 
word Romantic ? 

But, when I introduced the mention of reformers 
and their projects, I was not intending any reference 
to delusive presumptions of the operations of Chris- 
tianity, but to those speculations and schemes for 
the amendment of mankind which anticipate their 
effect independently of its assistance ; some of them 
perhaps silently coinciding with several of its prin- 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 161 

ciples, while others expressly disclaim them. Unless 
these schemes bring with them, like spirits from 
Heaven, an intrinsic'competence to the great oper- 
ation, without being met or aided by any consider- 
able degree of favourable disposition in the nature 
of the Subject, it is probable that they will disappoint 
their fond projectors. There is no avoiding the un- 
gracious perception, in viewing the general charac- 
ter of the race, that, after some allowance for what 
is called natural affection, and for compassionate 
sympathy, (an excellent principle, but extremely 
limited, and often capricious in its operation,) the 
main strength of human feeling's consists in the love 
of sensual gratification, of distinction, of power, and 
of money. And by what suicidal inconsistency are 
these principles to lend their force to accomplish the 
schemes of pure reason and virtue, which, they will 
not fail to perceive, are plotting as^ainst them ?* 
And if they have far too perfect an "instinct to be 
trepanned into such an employment of their force, 
and yet are the preponderating agents in the human 
heart, what other active principles of it can the reno- 
vator of human character call to his effectual aid, 
against the evils which are accumulated and defend- 
ed by what is at once the baser and the stronger 
part? Whatever principles of a better kind there 
may be in the nature, they can hold but a feeble and 
inert existence under this predominance of the 
worse, and could make but a faint insurrection in 
favour of the invading virtue. The very worst of 
them may indeed seem to become its allies when it 
happens, as it occasionally will, that the course of 
action which reforming virtue enforces, falls in the 
same line in which these meaner principles can pro- 
mote their interests. Then, and so far, an unsound 
coincidence may take place, and the external effect 

* I am here reminded of the Spanish story of a village where 
the devil, having made the people excessively wielded, was pun- 
ished by being compelled to assume the appearance and habit of a 
friar, and to preach so eloquently, in spite of liis internal repng- 
Bance and rage, that the inliabitants were completely reformed. 



162 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

of those principles may be clad in specious appear- 
ances of virtue ; but the moment that the reforming 
projector summons their co-operation to a service in 
which they must desert their own object and their 
corrupt character, they will desert him. As lonff as 
he is condemned to depend, for the efficacy of his 
schemes, on the aid of so much pure propensity as 
he shall find in the corrupted subject, he will be 
nearly in the case of a man attempting to climb a 
tree by laying hold, first on this side, and then on 
that, of some rotten twig, which still breaks off in 
his hand, and lets him fall among the nettles. 

Look again to the state of facts. Collective man 
is human nature ; and the conduct of this assemblage, 
under the diversified experiments continually made 
on it, expresses its true character, and indicates 
what may be expected from it. Now then, to what 
principle in human nature, as thus illustrated by 
trial, could you with confidence appeal in favour of 
any of the great objects which a benevolent man 
desires to see accomplished ? If there were in it 
any one grand principle of goodness which an ear- 
nest call, and a great occasion, would raise into ac- 
tion, to assert or redeem the character of the species, 
one should think it would be what we call, incorrect- 
ly enough, Humanity. Consider then, in this nation 
for instance, which extols its own generous virtues 
to the sky, what lively and rational appeals have 
been made to the whole community, respecting the 
slave trade,* the condition of the poor, and the hate- 
ful mass of cruelty inflicted on brute animals, not to 
glance toward the horrid sacrifices in that temple of 

* Happily this topic of accusation is in a measure now set aside : 
but it would have remained as immoveable as the continent of 
Africa, if the legislature had not been forced into a conviction 
that, on the whole, the slave trade was not advantageous Jn point 
of pecuniary interest. At least the guilt would so have remained 
upon the nation acting in its capacity of a state — This note is 
added subsequently to the first edition. — It may be subjoined, in 
qualification of the reproach relative to the next article, — the 
condition of the poor — that during a later period there has been 
a great increase of the attention and exertion directed tothatcpft' 
dition ; which has, nevertheless, become wo^se.. 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 163 

Moloch named honourable war, which has been kept 
open more than half the past century; — appeals 
substantially in vain : And why in vain ? If human- 
ity ivere a powerful principle in the nature of the 
community, they would not, in contempt of knowl- 
edge, expostulation, and spectacles of misery, persist 
in the most enormous violations of it. Why in vain ? 
but plainly because there is not enough of the virtue 
of humanity, not even in what is deemed a highly 
cultivated state of the human nature, to answer to 
the pathetic call. Or if this be not the cause, let 
the idolaters of human divinity call, like the wor- 
shippers of Baal, in a louder voice. Their success 
will too probably be the same ; they will obtain no ex- 
traordinary exertion of power, though they cry from 
morning till the setting sun. And meanwhile the 
observer, who foresees their disappointment, would 
think himself warranted, but for the melancholy feel- 
ing that the nature in question is his own, to mock 
their expectations. — You know that a multitude of 
exemplifications might be added. And the thought 
of so many great and interesting objects, relating 
to the human economy, as a sober appreciation of 
means seems to place beyond the reach of the moral 
revolutionist,* will often, if he has genuine benevo- 
lence, make him sad. He will repeat to himself, 
*Howeasyit is to conceive these inestimable im- 
provements, and how nobly they would exalt my 
species ; but how to work them into the actual con- 
dition of man ! — Are there somewhere in possibility,' 
he will ask, ' intellectual and moral engines mighty 
enough to perform the great process ? Where in 
darkness is the sacred repository in which they lie ? 
What Marratonf shall explore the unknown way to 

* It is obvious that I am not supposing this moral revolutionist 
to be armed with any power but that of persuasion. If he were 
a monarch, and possessed virtue and talents equal to his power, 
the case would be materially different. Even then, he would 
accomplish but little compared with what he could imagine, and 
would desire ; yet, to all human appearance, he might be the 
instrumentof wonderfully changing the condition of society within 
his empire. If the soul of Alfred could return to the earth I— 

t Spectator, No. 56 



164 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

it? The man who would not be glad, in exchange 
for the discovery of this treasury of powers, to shut 
up forever the mines of Potosi, would deserve to be 
immured as the last victim of those deadly caverns.' 
But each speculative visionary thinks the discov- 
ery is made ; and while surveying his own great 
magazine of expedients, consisting of FortunatuS's 
cap, the philosopher's stone, Aladdin's lamp, and 
other equally efficient articles, he is confident that 
the work may speedily be done. These powerful 
instruments of melioration perhaps lose their indi- 
vidual names under the general denomination of 
Philosophy, a term that would be venerable, if it 
could be saved from the misfortune of being hack- 
neyed into cant, and from the impiety of substituting 
its expedients in the place of divine power. But it 
is of little consequence what denomination the pro- 
jectors assume to themselves or their schemes : it is 
by their fruits that we shall know them. Their work 
is before them ; the scene of moral disorder presents 
to them the plagues Avhich they are to stop, the 
mountain which they are to remove, the torrent 
which they are to divert, the desert which they are 
to clothe in verdure and bloom. Let them make 
their experiment, and add each his page to the 
gloomy records in which experience contemns the 
folly of imagination.* 

* In reading lately some part of a tolerably well-written book 
published a few years since, I came to the following passage,- 
which, though in connexion imleed with the subject of elections, 
expresses the atithor's general opinion of the state of society, and 
of the means of exalting it to wisdom and virtue. 'The l)nlk of 
the communifj' begin to examine, to feel, to understand, their 
rights and duties. TItey only require the fostering care of the Phi- 
losopher to ripen them into complete rationality, and furnish them 
with the requisites of political and moral action.' Here I paused 
to indulge my wonder. The fostering care of the Philosopher! 
Why then is not the Philosopher about his business 1 Why does 
be not go and indoctrinate a company of peasants in the intervals of 
a ploughingora harvest day, when lie will find them far more eager 
for ills instructions than for drink 1 Why does he not introduce 
himself among a circle of farmers, who cannot fail, as he enters, 
to be very judiciously discussing, with the aid of their punch and 
tJieir pipes, the most refined questions respecting their rights and 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 165 

All the speculations and schemes of the sanguine 
projectors of all ages, have left the world still a prey 
to infinite legions of vices and miseries, an immortal 
band, which has trampled in scorn on the monuments 
and the dust of the self-idolizing men who dreamed, 
each in his day, that they were born to chase these 
evils out of the eartii. If these vain demigods of an 
hour, vvho trusted to change the world, and who per- 
haps wished to change it only to make it a temple 
to th(>ir fame, could be awaked from the unmarked 
graves into which they sunk, to look a little while 
round on the world for some traces of the success of 
their projects, v/ould they not be eager to retire 
again into the chambers of death, to hide the shame 
of their remembered presumption? The wars and 
tyranny, the rancor, cruelty and revenge, tx)gether 
with all the other unnumbered vices and crimes with 
which the earth is still infested, are enough, if the 
whole mass could be brought within the bounds of 
any one even the most extensive empire, to consti- 
tute its whole population literally infernals, all but 
their being iucarnate, and that indeed they would 
soon, through mutual destruction, cease to be. Hith- 

diities. and vvantfna but exactly his aid, instead of mm-e punch 
and tobacco, to possess theiiiselves completely of the requisites of 
political and mora! action '? The population of a manufactory, is 
another most promisinii seminary, where all the moral and intel- 
lectual endowments are so nearly 'ripe,' that he will seem less to 
have the task of cultivatins than the pleasure of reaping. Even 
amon;,' the company in the ale-house, though the Philosopher 
inijiht at first be sorry, and might wonder, to perceive a slit'ht 
nierjre of the moral part of the man in the sensitive, and to find 
in so vociferous a mood that inquiring reason which, he had sup- 
posed, would he waiting for him wi'h the silent, anxious docility 
of a pupil of Pythagoras, yet he would find a tiiost pov\ertiil pre- 
disposition to truth and virtue, and there would be every thing to 
hope f:om the accuracy of his logic, the comprehensiveness of his 
views, and the beauty of his moral sentiments. Put perhaps it 
will he explained, that the Philosopher does not mean to vi>it all 
these people in person ; but that having first secured the source 
of influence, having taken entire possession of princes, nobility, 
gentrv. and clergy, which he expects to do in a very shoit time, 
he will manage them like an electrical machine, to operate on the 
bulk of the community. Rither way the achievement will be creat 
gnd admirable ; the iMter eveut ?eems to have been predicted in 
that sibylline sentence, ' When the sky falls, we soall catch larks.' 



166 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

erto the fatal cause of these evils, the corruption of 
the human heart, has sported with the weakness, or 
seduced the strength, of all human contrivances to 
subdue them. Nor do T perceive any signs as yet 
that we are commencing a better era, in which the 
means that have failed before, or the expedients of 
a new and more fortunate invention, shall become 
irresistible, like the sword of Michael in our hands. 
The nature of man still ' casts ominous conjecture 
on the whole success.' While that is corrupt, it will 
pervert even the very schemes and operations by 
which the world should be improved, though their 
first principles Avere pure as heaven ; and revolutions, 
great discoveries, augmented science, and new forms 
of polity, will become in eff\ict what may be denom- 
inated the sublime mechanics of depravity. 



LETTER V. 

Melancholy Reflections. ...No Consolation amidst the mysterious Economy but in 
an Assurance that an infinitely good Being presides, and will at length open out 
a new moral World.... Yet many moral Projeciors are solicitons to keep their 

, Schemes fortlie Amendment of the World clear of any reference to the Almighty 
....Even good Men are guilty of placing too much Dependence on subordinate 
Powers and Agents.... The Representations in this Essay not intended to depre- 
ciate to nothing the Worth and Use of the whole Stock of Means, but to reduce 
them, and the'Effects to be expected from them, to a sober Estimate.. ..A humble 
Thing to be a Man. ...Inculcation of devout Submission, and Diligence, and 
Prayer.. ..Sublime Q,uality, and indefinite Efficacy, of this last, as a Means ... 
Conclusion ; briefly marking out a few general Characters of Sentiment and 
Action to which, though very uncommon, the Epithet Romantic is unjusily 
applied. 

This view of moral and philosophical projects, 
added to that of the limited exertion of energy which 
the Almighty has made to attend, as yet, the dispen- 
sation of the gospel, and accompanied with the con- 
sideration of the impotence of human efforts to make 
that dispensation efficacious where his will does not, 
forms a melancholy and awful account. In the hours 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 167 

of pensive thought, the serious observer, unless he 
can fully resign the condition of man to the infinite 
wisdom and goodness of his Creator, will feel an- 
emotion of horror, as if standing on the verge of a 
hideous gulf, into which almost all the possibilities, 
and speculations, and efforts, and hopes, relating to 
the best improvements of mankind, are brought down 
in a long abortive series by the torrent of ages, to 
be lost in final despair. 

To an atheist of enlarged sensibility, if that were 
a possible character, how gloomy, beyond all power 
of description, must be the long review, and the 
undefinable prospect, of this triumph of evil, unac- 
companied, as it must appear to his thoughts, by any 
sublime, intelligent process, converting, in some 
manner unknown to mortals, this evil into good, 
either during the course, or in the result. A devout 
theist, when he becomes sad amidst his contempla- 
tions, recovers a solemn and submissive tranquillity, 
by reverting to his assurance of such a wise and 
omnipotent conduct. As a believer in revelation, he 
is consoled by the confidence both that this train of 
evils will be converted into good in the effect, and 
that the evil itself in this world will at a future pe- 
riod almost cease. He is persuaded that the Great 
Spirit, who presides over this mysterious scene, has 
yet an energy of operation in reserve to be unfolded 
on the earth, such as its inhabitants have never, ex- 
cept in a few momentary glimpses, beheld, and that 
when his kingdom comes, those powers will be man- 
ifested, to command the chaos of turbulent and ma- 
lignant elements into a new moral world. 

And is it not strange, my dear friend, to observe 
how carefully some philosphers, who deplore the 
condition of the world, and profess to expect its 
melioration, keep their speculations clear of every 
idea of Divine Interposition ? No builders of houses 
or cities were ever more attentive to guard against 
the access of inundation or fire. If He should but 
touch their prospective theories of improvement, 
they would renounce them, as defiled and fit only 



168 ON THE APPLICATION OP 

for vulgar fanaticism. Their s)^steni of providence 
would be profaned by the intrusion of the Almighty. 
Man is to effect an apotheosis for himself, by the 
hopeful process of exhausting his corruptions. And 
should it take all but an endless series of ages, vices, 
and woes, to reach this glorious attainment, patience 
may sustain itself the while by the thought that 
when it is realized, it will be burdened with no duty 
of religious gratitude. No time is too long to wait, 
no cost too deep to incur, for the triumph of proving 
that we have no need of that one attribute of a Di- 
vinity, which creates the grand interest in acknowl- 
edging such a Being, the benevolence that would 
make us happy. But even if this triumph should be 
found unattainable, the independence of spirit which 
has laboured for it, must not at last sink into piety. 
This afflicted world, ' this poor terrestrial citadel of 
man,' is to lock its gates, and keep its miseries, 
rather than admit the degradation of receiving help 
from God. 

I wish it were not true, that even men who firmly 
believe in the general doctrine of the divine govern- 
ment of the world, are often betrayed into the impi- 
ety of attaching an excessive importance to human 
agency in its events. How easily a creature of their 
own species is transformed by a sympathetic pride 
into a god before them ! If what they deem the 
cause of truth and justice, advances with a splendid 
front of distinguished names of legislators, or patri- 
ots, or military heroes, it must then and must there- 
fore triumph ; nothing can withstand such talents, 
accompanied by the zeal of so many faithful adher- 
ents. If these shining- insects of fame are crushed, 
or sink into the despicable reptiles of corruption, 
alas, then, for the cause of truth and justice ! All 
this while, there is no solemn reference to the 
* Blessed and only Potentate.' If however the foun- 
dations of their religious faith have not been shaken, 
and they possess any docility to the lessons of time, 
they will after a while be taught to withdraw their 
dependence and confidence from aU subordinate 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. lOSf 

agents, and habitually regard the Supreme Being as 
the only power in the creation. 

Perhaps it is not improb-ible, that the grand moral 
improvements of a future age may be accomplished 
in a manner that shall leave nothing to man but 
humility and grateful adoration. His pride so ob- 
stinately ascribes to himself whatever good is effect- 
ed on the globe, that perhaps the Deity will evince 
his own interposition, by events as evidently inde- 
pendent of human power as the rising of the sun. 
It may be that some of them may take place in a 
manner but little connected even with human oper- 
ation. Or if the activity of men shall be employed 
as the means of producing all of them, there will 
probably be as palpable a disproportion between the 
instruments and the events, as there was between 
the rod of Moses and the stupendous phenomena 
which followed its being stretched forth. No Isra- 
elite was foolish enough to ascribe to the rod the 
power that divided the sea ; nor will the witnesses 
of the moral wonders to come attribute them to man. 

I hope these extended observations will not appear 
like an attempt to exhibit the v/hole stock of means, 
as destitute of all value, and the industrious applica- 
tion of them as a labour without reward. It is not 
to depreciate a thing, if, in the attempt to ascertain 
its real magnitude, it is proved to be little. It is no 
injustice to mechanical powers, to say that slender 
machines will not move rocks and massive timbers ; 
nor to chemical ones, to assert that though an earth- 
quake may fling a promontory from its basis, the 
explosion of an ounce of gunpowder will not. — Be- 
tween moral powers also, and the objects to which 
they are applied, there are eternal laws of proportion ; 
and it would seem a most obvious principle of good 
sense, that an estimate moderately correct of the 
force of each of our means according to these laws, 
as far as th'^y can be ascertained, should precede 
every application of them. Such an estimate has no 
place in a mind under the ascendency of imag-ination, 
which, therefore, by extravagantly magnifying its 



170 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

means, inflates its projects with hopes which may 
justly be called Romantic. The best corrective of 
such irrational expectation is an appeal to experi- 
ence. There is an immense record of experiments, 
which will tell the power of almost all the engines, 
as worked by human hands, in the whole moral 
magazine. And if a man expects any one of them 
to produce a greater effect than ever before, it must 
be because the talents of him who repeats the trial, 
transcend those of all former experimenters, or else 
because the season is more auspicious. 

The estimate of the power of means, obtained by 
the appeal to experience, is indeed most humiliating : 
but Avhat then ? It is a humble thing to be a man. 
The feebleness of means is, in fact, the feebleness 
of him that employs them ; for the most inconsider- 
able means, when wielded by celestial powers, can 
produce the most stupendous effects. Till, then, the 
time shall arrive for us to assume a nobler rank of 
existence, we must be content to work on the pre- 
sent level of our nature, and effect that little which 
we can effect ; unless it be greater magnanimity 
and piety to resolve that because our powers are 
limited to do only little things, they shall therefore, 
as if in revenge for such an economy, do nothing. 
Our means will do something ; that something is 
what they were meant to effect in our hands, and 
not that something else which we all wish they 
would effect, and a visionary man presumes they will. 

This disproportion between the powers and means 
which mortals are confined to wield, and the great 
objects which all good men would desire to accom- 
plish, is a part of the appointments of Him who de- 
termined all the relations in the universe ; and He 
will see to the consequences. For the present, he 
seems to say to his servants, ' Forbear to inquire 
why so small a part of those objects to which I have 
summoned your activity, is placed within the reach 
of your powers. Your feeble ability for action is not 
accompanied by such a capacity of understanding, 
as would be requisite to comprehend why that ability 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 171 

was made no greater. "Even if it had been made 
incomparably greater, would there not still have 
been objects before it too vast for its operation ? 
Must not the highest of created beings still have 
something in view, which they feel they can but 

Sartially accomplish till their powers are enlarged ? 
lust there not be an end of improvement in my 
creation, if the powers of my creatures had become 
perfectly equal to the magnitude of their designs ? 
How mean must be the spirit of that being that would 
not make an effort now, toward the accomplishment 
of something higher than he will be able to accom- 
plish till hereafter. Because mightier labourers 
would have been requisite to effect all that you wish, 
will you therefore murmur that I have honoured you, 
the inferior ones, with the appointment of making a 
noble exertion ? If there is but little power in your 
hands, is it not because I retain the power in mine ? 
Are you afraid lest that power should fail to do all 
things right, only because you are so little made its 
instruments ? Be grateful that all the work is not 
to be done without you, and that a God employs you 
in that in which he also is employed. But remem- 
ber, that while the employment is yours, the success 
is altogether his ; and that your diligence therefore, 
and not the effect which it produces, will be the test 
of your characters. Good men have been employed 
in all ages under the same economy of inadequate 
means, and what appeared to them inconsiderable 
success. Go to your labours : every sincere effort 
will infallibly be one step more in your own progress 
to a perfect state ; and as to the Cause, when / see 
it necessary for a God to interpose in his own man- 
ner, I will come.' 

I should deem a train of observations of the mel- 
ancholy hue which shades some of the latter pages 
of this essay, useless, or perhaps even noxious, were 
I not convinced that a serious exhibition of the fee- 
bleness of human agency in relation to all great 
objects, might aggravate the impression, often so 
faint, of the absolute supremacy of God, of the total 



172 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

dependence of all mortal effort on him, and of the 
necessity of devoutly regarding his intervention at 
every moment. It might promote that last attain- 
ment of a zealously good man, the resignation to be 
as diminutive an agent as God pleases, and as un- 
successful a one, I am assured also that, in a pious 
mind, the humiliating estimate of means and human 
power, and the consequent sinking down of all lofty 
expectations founded on them, will leave one single 
means, and that far the best of all, to be held not 
only of undiminished but of more eminent value 
than ever was ascribed to it before. The noblest of 
all human means must be that which obtains the 
exertion of divine power. The means which, intro- 
ducing no foreign agency, are applied directly and 
immediately to their objects, seem to bear such a 
defined proportion to those objects, as to assign and 
iiniit the probable effect. This strict proportion 
exists no longer, and therefore the possible effects 
become too great for calculation, when that expedi- 
ent is solemnly employed, which is appointed as the 
means of engaging the divine energy to act on the 
object. If the only means by which Jehoshaphat 
sought to overcome his superior enemy, had been 
his troops, horses, and arms, the proportion between 
these means and the end would have been nearly 
assignable, and the probable result of the conflict a 
matter of ordinary calculation. But when he said, 
* Neither know we what to do, but our eyes are up 
unto thee,' he moved (I speak it reverently) a new 
and infinite force to invade the host of Moab and 
Ammon ; and the consequence displayed, in their 
camp, the difference between an irreligious leader, 
who could fight only with arms and on the level of 
the plain, and a pious one, who could thus assault 
from Heaven. It may not, I own, be perfectly cor- 
rect, to cite, in illustration of the efficacy of prayer, 
the most wonderful ancient examples. Nor is it 
needful, since the experience of devout and emi- 
nently rational men, in latter times, has supplied a 
great number of striking instances of important ad- 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 173 

Tantages so connected with prayer, that they deemed 
them the evident result of it. This experience, 
taken in confirmation of the assurances of the Bible, 
warrants ample expectations of the efficacy of an 
earnest and habitual devotion ;* provided still, as I 
need not remind you, that this means be employed 
as the grand auxiliary of the other means, and not 
alone, till all the rest are exhausted or impracticable. 
And 1 am convinced that every man, who, amidst 
his serious projects, is apprised of his dependence 
on God, as completely as that dependence is a fact, 
will be impelled to pray, and anxious to induce his 
serious friends to pray, almost every hour. He will 
as little, without it, promise himself any noble suc- 
cess, as a mariner would expect to reach a distant 
coast by having his sails spread in a stagnation of 
the air. — I have intimated my fear that it is visionary 
to expect an unusual success in the human adminis- 
tration of religion, unless there are unusual omens ; 
now a most emphatical spirit (£ prayer would be 
such an omen ; and the individual who should sol- 
emnly determine to try its last possible efficacy, 
miofht probably find himself becoming a much more 
prevailing agent in his little sphere. And if the 
whole, or tlie gre-ater number, of the disciples of 
Christianity, were, with an earnest, unalterable res- 
olution of each, to combine that Heaven should not 
withhold one single influence which the very utmost 
eflTort of conspiring and persevering supplication 
would obtain, it would be the sign that a revolution 
of the world was at hand. 

My dear friend, it is quite time to dismiss this 
whole subject; though it will probably appear to 
you that I have entirely lost and forgotten the very 
purpose for which I tool? it up, which certainly was 
to examine the correctness of some not unusual ap- 
plications of the epithet Romantic. It seemed nec- 
essary, first, to describe the characteristics of that 

* Here T shall not be niisiinderstood to believe the muUitude of 
stories which have been told by deluded fancy, or detestable im- 
posture. 



174 ON THE APPLICATION OF 

extravagance which ought to be given up to the 
charge, with some exemplifications. The attempt 
to do this, has led me into a length of detail far be- 
yond all expectation. The intention was, next, to 
display and to vindicate, in an extended illustration, 
several schemes of life, and models of character; 
but 1 will not carry the subject any further. I shall 
only just specify, in concluding, two or three of those 
points of character, on which the censure of being 
romantic has improperly fallen. 

One is, a disposition to take high examples for 
imitation. 1 have condemned that extravagance, 
which presumes on the same career of action and 
success that has been the destiny of some individu- 
als, so extraordinary as to be the most conspicuous 
phenomena of history. But this is a very different 
thing from the disposition to contemplate with emo- 
tion the class of men who have been illustrious for 
their excellence and their wisdom, to observe with 
deep attention the principles that animated them 
and the process of their attainments, and to keep 
them in view, as the standard of character. A man 
may, without a presumptuous estimate of his talents, 
or the expectation of passing through any course of 
unexampled events, indulge the ambition to resem- 
ble and follow, in the essential determination of their 
characters, those sublime spirits who are now re- 
moved to the kingdom where they 'shine as the 
stars forever and ever.' 

A striking departure from the order of custom in 
that rank to which a man belongs, by devoting the 
privileges of that rank to a modeof excellence which 
the people who compose it never dreamed to be a 
duty, will by them be denominated Romantic. They 
will wonder why a man that ought to be just like 
themselves, should affect quite a different style of 
life, should attempt unusual plans of doing good, 
should distaste the society of his class, and should 
put himself under some extraordinary discipline of 
virtue, though every point of his system may be the 
dictate of reason and conscience. 



THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 175 

The irreligious will apply this epithet to the de- 
termination to make, and the zeal to inculcate, great 
exertions and sacrifices for a purely moral ideal re- 
ward. Some gross and palpable prize is requisite to 
excite their energies ; and therefore self-denial re- 
paid by conscience, beneficence Avithout fame, and 
the delight of resembling the Divinity, appear very 
visionary felicities. 

The epithet will often be applied to a man who 
feels it an imperious duty, to realize, as far as possi- 
ble, and as soon as possible, every thing which in 
theory he approves and applauds. You will often 
hear a circle of perhaps respectable persons agreeing 
entirely that this one is an excellent principle of ac- 
tion, and that other an amiable quality, and a third 
a sublime excellence, who would be amazed at your 
fanaticism, if you Avere to adjure them thus: 'My 
friends, from this moment you are bound, from this 
moment we are all bound, on peril of the displeasure 
of God, to realize in ourselves, to the last possible 
extent, all that we have thus applauded.' Through 
some fatal defect of conscience, there is a very gen- 
eral feeling, regarding the high order of moral and 
religious attainments, that though it is a glorious and 
happy exaltation to possess them, yet it is perfectly 
safe to stop contented where we are. One is con- 
founded to hear irritable persons applauding a char- 
acter of self-command ; persons who trifle away 
their days admiring the instances of a strenuous im- 
provement of time ; rich persons praising examples 
of extraordinary beneficence which they know far 
surpass themselves, though without larger means ; 
and all expressing their deep respect for the men 
who have been most eminent for devotional habits; 
— and yet apparently with no consciousness that 
they are themselves placed in a solemn election of 
henceforth striving in earnest to exemplify this very 
same pitch of character, or of being condemned in 
the day of Judgment. 

Finally, in the application of this epithet, but little 
allowance is generally made for the very great dif- 



176 THE EPITHET ROMANTIC. 

ference between a man's entertaining high desfgrr^ 
and hopes for himself alone^ and his entertaining' 
them relative to other persons^. It may be very ro- 
mantic for a man to promise himself to effect such 
desisfns upon others as it may be very reasonable to 
meditate for himself. If he feelsthe powerful, habitual 
impulse of conviction, prompting him to the highest 
attainments of wisdom and excellence, he may per- 
haps justly hope to approach them himself, though it 
would be most extravagant to exter^d the same hope- 
to all the persons to whom he may try to impart the 
impulse. I specify the attainments of wisdom and 
excellence, because, to the distinction between the 
designs and hopes which a man might entertain for 
himself, and those which be might have respecting- 
others, it is necessary to add a further distinction as 
to the nature of those which he might entertain only 
for himself. His extraordinary plans and expecta- 
tions for himself might be of such a nature as to 
depend on other persons for their accomplishment, 
and might therefore be as extravagant as if other 
persons alone had been their object. Or, on the 
contrary, they may be of a kind which shall not need 
the co-operation of other persons, and may be real- 
ized independently of their will. The design of ac- 
quiring immense riches, or becoming the commander 
of an army, or the legislator of a nation, must in its 
progress be dependent on other beings besides the 
individual, in too many thousand points for a consid- 
erate man to presume that he shall be fortunate in 
them all. But the schemes of eminent persona] at- 
tainments, not being dependent in any of these ways^ 
are romantic only when there is some fatal intellect- 
ual or moral defect in the mind itself which has 
adopted lhem» 



ESSAY IV. 



O^r SOME OF THE CjIUSES BY WHICH EVAJ^GELICAL 
RELIGIOJf HAS B£EJV REJ\''DERED UjYACCEPTABLE 
TO PERSONS OF CULTIVATED TASTE. 



LETTER I. 

Xature of the Displacency with which soine of the most peculiar Features of Chris- 
tianity are regarded by many cultivated Men, who do not deny or doubt the 
Divine Authority of the Religion. ...Brief Notice of the Term Evangelical. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, 

While this life is passing so fast away, it is strik-^ 
ing to observe the various forms of character in 
which men choose to spend this introductory season, 
of their being, and to enter on its future greater 
stage. If some one of these forms is more eligible 
than all the rest for entering on that greater stage, 
a thoughtful man will surely wish for that to be his 
own ; and to ascertain which it is, is the most im- 
portant of all his inquiries. We, my friend, aye 
persuaded that the inquiry, if serious, will soon ter- 
minate, and that the Christian cbaracter will be 
selected as the only one, in which it is wise to await 
the call into eternity. Indeed the assurance of our 
eternal existence itself rests but on that authority 
which dictates also the right introduction to it. 

The Christian character is simply a conformity to 
the whole religion of Christ. But this implies a. 
cordial 9.dmission of that whole religion ; and i% 
16 



178 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

meets, on the contrary, in many minds not denying 
it to be a communication from God, a disposition to 
shrink from some of its peculiar distinctions, or to 
modify them. I am not now to learn that the sub- 
stantial cause of this is that repugnance in human 
nature to what is purely divine, which revelation 
affirms, and all history proves, and which perhaps 
some of the humiliating points of the Christian sys- 
tem are more adapted "to provoke, than any thing- 
else that ever came from heaven. Nor do I need 
to be told how much this chief cause has aided and 
aggravated the power of those subordinate ones, 
which may have conspired to prevent Ihe success of 
evangelical religion among one class of persons ; I 
mean persons of a refined taste, and whose feelings 
concerning what is great and excellent have been 
disciplined to accord to a literary or philosophical 
standard. But even had there been less of this nat- 
ural aversion in such minds, or had there been none, 
some of the causes which have acted on them, would, 
nevertheless, have tended, necessarily, as far as they 
had any operation at all, to lessen the attraction of 
pure Christianity. — I wish to illustrate several of 
these causes, after briefly describing the antichris- 
tian feelings in which I have observed their effect. 
It is true that many persons of taste have, without 
any precise disbelief of the Christian truth, so little 
concern about religion in any form, that the unthink- 
ing dislike which they may occasionally feel to the 
evangelical principles hardly deserves to be describ- 
ed. These are to be assigned, whatever may be 
their faculties or improvements, to the numerous 
triflers, on whom we can pronounce only the general 
condemnation of irreligion, their feelings not being 
sufficiently marked for a more discriminative cen- 
sure. But the aversion to the evangelical system is 
of a more defined character, as it exists in a mind 
too serious for the follies of the world and the neglect 
of all religion, and in which the very aversion be- 
comes, at times, the subject of painful and apprehen- 
fiive reflection, from a consciousness that it is an 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 17i) 

unhappy symptom, if that view of the subjects by 
which it is excited, has really the sanction of divine 
revelation. If a person of such a rnind disclosed 
himself to you, he would describe how the elevated 
sentiment, inspired by the contemplation of other 
sublime subjects, is confounded, and sinks mortified 
into the heart, when this new subject is presented 
to his view. It seems to require almost a total 
change of his mental habits to admit this as the most 
interesting subject of all, while yet he dares not re- 
ject the authority which supports its claims. The 
dignity of religion, as a general and refined specula- 
tion, he may have long acknowledged ; but it appears 
to him as if it lost part of that dignity, in taking the 
specific form of the evangelical system ; just as if 
an ethereal being were reduced to'combine his radi- 
ance and subtilty with an earthly nature. He is 
aware that religion in the abstract, or, in other words, 
the principles which constitute the obligatory rela- 
tion of all intelligent creatures to the Supreme Be- 
ing, must receive a special modification, by means 
of the addition of some other principles, in order to 
become a peculiar religious economy for a particular 
race of those creatures, especially for a little and a 
guilty race. And the Christian revelation assigns 
the principles by which this religion in the abstract, 
the religion of the universe, is thus modified into the 
peculiar form required for the nature and condition 
of man. But when he contemplates some of these 
principles, which do indeed place our nature and 
condition in a very humbling point of view, he can 
with difficulty avoid regretting that our relations 
with the Divinitv should be fixed according to such 
an economy. The gospel appears to him like the 
image in Nebuchadnezzar's dream, refulgent indeed 
with a head of cold ; the sublime truths which are 
independent of every peculiar dispensation are lu- 
minously exhibited ; but the doctrines which are 
added as descriptive of the peculiar circumstances 
of the Christian economy, appear less splendid, and 
as if descending towards the qualities of iron and 



180 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

clay. In admitting this portion of the system as a 
part of the truth, nis feelings amount to the wish 
that a different theory had been true. It is therefore 
with a degree of shrinking reluctance that he some- 
times adverts to the ideas peculiar to the gospel. 
He would willingly lose this specific scheme of doc- 
trines in a more general theory of religion, instead 
of resigning every wider speculation for this scheme, 
in which God has comprised, and distinguished by a 
very peculiar character, all the religion which he 
wills to be known, or to be useful, to our world. He 
would gladly evade the conviction that the gospel is 
so far from being merely one of the modes, or merely 
even the best of the modes, of religion, that it is, as 
to us, the comprehensive and exclusive mode ; mso- 
much that he who has not a religion concordant with 
the New Testament, is without a religion. He suf- 
fers himself to pass the year in a dissatisfied uncer- 
tainty, and a criminal neglect of deciding whether 
his cold reception of the specific views of Christian- 
ity will render unavailing his regard for those more 
general truths respecting the Deity, moral rectitude, 
and a future state, which are necessarily at the basis 
of the system. He is afraid to examine and deter- 
mine the question, whether it will be safe to rest in 
a scheme composed of the general principles of wis- 
dom and virtue, selected from the Christian oracles 
and the speculations of philosophy, harmonized by 
reason, and embellished by taste. If it were safe, 
he would much rather be the dignified professor of 
such a philosophic refinement of Christianity, than 
yield himself to be completely humbled into a sub- 
missive disciple of Jesus Christ. This refined sys- 
tem would be clear of the unwelcome peculiarities 
of Christi;in doctrine, and it would also allow some 
different ideas of the nature of moral excellence. 
He would not be so explicitly condemned for in- 
dulging a disposition to admire and imitate some of 
those models of character, which, however opposite 
to pure Christian excellence, the world has always 
idolized. 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 181 

I wish I could display, in the most forcible manner, 
the considerations which show how far such a state 
of mind is wrong-. But my object is, to remark on a 
few of the causes which may have contributed to it. 

I do not, for a moment, place among; these causes 
that continual dishonour which the religion of Christ 
has suffered through the corrupted institutions, and 
the depraved character of individuals or communities 
of what is called the Christian world. Such a man 
as I have supposed, understands what its tendency 
and dictates really are, so far at least that, in con- 
templating the bigotry, persecution, hypocrisy, and 
worldly ambition, which have stained, and continue 
to stain, the Christian history, his mind instantly 
dissevers, by a decisive glance of thought, all these 
evils, and the pretendedChristians who are account- 
able for them, from the religion which is as distinct 
from them as the Spirit that pervades all things is 
pure from matter and from sin. In his view, these 
odious things and these wicked men that have arro- 
gated and defiled the Christian name, sink out of 
sight through a chasm, like Korah, Dathan, and 
Abiram, and leave the camp and the cause holy, 
though they leave the numbers small. It needs so 
very moderate a share of discernment, in a Protestant 
country at least, where a well-known volume exhib- 
its the religion itself, genuine and entire as it came 
from heaven, to perceive the utter disconnexion and 
antipathy between it and all these abominations, 
that to take them as congenial and inseparable, be- 
trays, in every instance, a detestable want of prin- 
ciple, or a pitiable want of sense. The defect of 
cordiality toward the religion of Christ, in the per- 
sons that I am accusing, does not arise from this 
debility or this injustice. They would not be less 
equitable to Christianity than they would to some 
estimable man, whom they would not esteem the 
less because villains that hated him, knew, however, 
so well the excellence of his name and character, as 
gladly to employ them to aid their schemes, or to 
shelter their crimes. — But, indeed, these remarks 



182 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

are not strictly to the purpose ; since the prejudice 
which a weak or corrupt mind receives from such a 
view of the Christian history, operates, as we see by 
facts, not discriminatively against particular charac- 
teristics of Christianity, but against the whole sys- 
tem, and leads toward a denial of its divine origin. 
On the contrary, the class of persons now in question 
fully admit its divine authority, but feel a deep dis- 
like to some of its most peculiar distinctions. These 
peculiarities they may wish, as I have said, to refine 
away ; but, in moments of impartial seriousness, are 
constrained to admit the conviction, or something 
very near the conviction, of their being inseparable 
from the sacred economy. This however fails to 
subdue or conciliate the heart ; and the dislike to 
some of the parts has often an influence on the af- 
fections in regard to the whole. That portion of the 
system which they think they could admire, is admit- 
ted with the coldness of a mere speculative assent, 
from the intruding recollection of its being combined 
with something else which they cannot admire. 
Those distinctions from which they recoil, are chiefly 
comprised in that view of Christianity which, among 
a large proportion of the professors of it, is denom- 
inated, in a somewhat specific sense. Evangelical ; 
and therefore I have adopted this denomination in 
the title of this letter. Christianity, taken in this 
view, contains — a humiliating estimate of the moral 
condition of man, as a being radically corrupt — the 
doctrine of redemption from that condition by the 
merit and sufferings of Christ — the doctrine of a 
divine influence being necessary to transform the 
character of the human mind, in order to prepare it 
for a higher station in the universe — and a grand 
moral peculiarity by which it insists on humility, 
penitence, and a separation from the spirit and habits 
of the world. — I do not see any necessity for a more 
formal and amplified description of that mode of 
understanding Christianity which has assumed the 
distinctive epithet Evangelical ; and which is not, 
to say the least, more discriminatively designated 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 183 

among- the scoffing part of the wits, critics, and the- 
ologians of the day, by the terms Fanatical, Calvin- 
istical, Methodistical. 

I may here notice that, though the greater share 
of the injurious influences on which I may remark 
operates more pointedly against the peculiar doctrines 
of Christianity, yet some of them are fatally hostile 
to that moral spirit which is so essentially inherent 
that the religion must partly retain it, everi when 
reduced as far as it can be toward the condition of a 
mere philosophical theory. And I would observe, 
finally, that though I have specified the more refined 
and intellectual class of minds, as indisposed to the 
religion of Christ by the causes to which I refer, and 
though I keep them chiefly in view, yet the influence 
of some of these causes extends to many persons of 
subordinate mental rank. 



LETTER II. 

One of the Causes of the Displacency is, that Christianity, being Ihe Reli|-ion of a 
great Number of Persons of weali and uncultivated Minds, presents its Doctrines 
to the view of Men of Taste associated with the Characteristics of those Minds ; 
and though some Parts of tlie Religion instantaneously redeem themselves from 
that Association by their philosophic Dignity, other Parts may require a consider- 
able Effort to detach them from it.. ..This easily done if the Men of Taste were 
powerfully pre-occupied and affected by ihe Religion. ..Reflections of one of them 
in this Case. ...But the Men of Taste now in question are not in this Case....Sev- 
eral specific Causes of injurious Impression from this Association of Kvangelical 
Doctrines and Sentiments with the intellectual Littleness of the Persons enter- 
taining them. ...Their Deficiency and Dislike of all strictly intellectual Exercise 
on Religion... .Their reducing the whole of Religion to one or two favourite No- 
tions, and continually dwelling on them. ...The perfect Indifference of some of 
them to general Knowledge, even when not destitute of Means of acquiring it; 
and the consequent voluntary and contented Poverty of the irreligious Ideas and 
Language... .Their Admiration of Things in a literary Sense utterly bad....Their 
Complacencv in their Deficiencies. ...Their injudicious Habits and Ceremonies..,. 
Their unfortunate Metaphors and Similes. ..Suggestion to religious Teachers that 
thev should not run to its last possible Extent the Parallel between the Pleasures 
of Piety and those of Eating and Drinking. ..Mischief of such Practices. ..Effect 
of the ungracious Collision between uncultivated Seniors and a yoong Person of 
Literary and Philosophic Taste. ...Expostulation with this intellectual young 
Person, on the Folly and Guilt of suffering his Mind to take the Impression of 



184 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

ETangelical Religion from any Thing which he knows to be inferior to that Re- 
ligion itself, as exhibited by the New Testament, and by the most elevated of iu 
Disciples. 

In the view of an intelligent and honest mind the 
religion of Christ stands as clear of all connexion 
with the corruption of men, and churches, and ages, 
as when it was first revealed. It retains its purity 
like Moses in Egypt, or Daniel in Babylon, or the 
Saviour of the world himself, while he mingled with 
scribes and pharisees, or publicans and sinners. But 
though it thus instantly and totally separates itself 
from all appearance of relation to the vices of bad 
men, a degree of effort may be required in order to 
display it, or to view it, in an equally perfect separa- 
tion from the weakness of good ones. It is in real- 
ity no more identified with the one than with the 
other ; its essential sublimity is as incapable of being 
reduced to littleness, as its purity is of uniting with 
vice. But it may have a vital connexion with a weak 
mind, while it necessarily disowns a wicked one ; 
and the qualities of that mind with which it confess- 
edly unites itself, will much more seem to adhere to 
it, than of that with which all its principles are plainly 
in antipathy. It will be more natural to take those 
persons who are acknowledged the real subjects of 
its influence, as illustrations of its nature, than those 
on whom it is the heaviest reproach that they pretend 
to be its friends. The perception of its nature and 
dignity must be very vivid, in the man who can ob- 
serve it in its state of intimate combination with the 
thoughts, affections, and language of its disciples, 
without losing sight for one moment of its essential 
qualities and lustre. No possible associations in- 
deed can diminish the grandeur of some parts of the 
Christian system. The doctrine of immortality, for 
instance, cannot l)e reduced to take even a transient 
appearance of littleness, by the meanest or most 
uncouth words and images that shall ever be em- 
ployed to represent it. But there are some other 
points of the system which have not the same obvi- 
ous philosophic sublimity. And these principles are 



TO EVANGELICAL REEIGION. 185 

capable of acquiring-, from the mental defects of 
their believers, such associations as will give a char- 
acter very different from our common ideas of sub- 
limity to so much as they constitute of the evangel- 
ical econom}^. One of the causes, therefore, which I 
meant to notice, as having excited in persons of taste 
a sentiment unfavourable to the reception of evan- 
gelical religion, is, that this is the religion of many 
weak and uncultivated minds. 

The schools of philosophy have been composed of 
men of superior faculties and extensive accomplish- 
ments, who could sustain, by eloquence and capa- 
cious thought, the dignity of the favourite themes ; 
so that the proud distinctions of the disciples and 
advocates appeared as the attributes of the doctrines. 
The adepts could attract refined and aspiring spirits, 
by proclaiming that the temple of their goddess was 
not profaned by being a rendezvous for vulgar men. 
On the contrary, it is the beneficent distinction of 
the gospel, that notwithstanding it is of a magnitude 
to interest and to surpass angelic investigation, (and 
therefore assuredly to pour contempt on the pride of 
human intelligence that rejects it for its meanness,) 
it is yet most expressly sent to the class which phi- 
losophers have always despised. And a good man 
feels it a cause of grateful joy, that a communication 
has come from heaven, adapted to effect the happi- 
ness of multitudes, in spite of natural debility or 
neglected education. He is grateful to him who 
has 'hidden these things from the wise and prudent, 
and revealed them to babes,' while he observes that 
confined capacities do not preclude the entrance, 
and the perm^^nent residence, of that sacred combi- 
nation of truth and power, which finds no place in 
the minds of many philosophers, and wits, and states- 
men. But it is not to be denied that the natural con- 
sequence follows. Contracted and obscured in its 
abode, the inhabitant will appear, as the sun through 
a misty sky, with but little of its magnificence, to a 
man who can be content to receive hiis impression of 
tiie intellectual character of the religion from the 



186 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

mode of its manifestation from the minds of its disci- 
ples ; and, in doing so, can indolently and perversely 
allow himself to regard the weakest mode of its dis- 
playing itself, as its truest image. In taking such a 
dwelling, the religion seems to imitate what was 
prophesied of its author, that, when he should be 
seen, there would be no beauty that he should be 
desired. This humiliation is inevitable ; for unless 
miracles are wrought, to impart to the less intellect- 
ual disciples an enlarged power of thinking, the 
evangelic truth must accommodate itself to the di- 
mensions and unrefined habitudes of their minds. 
And perhaps the exhibitions of it will come forth 
with more of the character of those minds, than of 
its own celestial distinctions: insomuch that if there 
were no declaration of the sacred system, but in the 
forms of conception and language in which they de- 
clare it, even a candid man might hesitate to admit 
it as the most glorious gift of Heaven. Happily, he 
finds its quality declared by other oracles ; but while 
from them he receives it in his own character, he is 
tempted to wish he could detach it from all the as- 
sociations which he feels it has acquired from the 
humbler exhibition. And he does not greatly won- 
der that other men of the same intellectual habits, 
and with a less candid and profound solicitude to 
receive with simplicity every thing that really comes 
from God, should have admitted an injurious im- 
pression from these associations. 

They would not make this impression on a man 
already devoted to the religion of Jesus Christ. No 
passion that has become predominant is ever cooled 
by any thing which can be associated with its object, 
while that object itself continues unaltered. The 
passion is even willing to verify its power, and the 
merit of that which interests it, by sometimes letting 
the unpleasing associations surround and touch the 
object for an instant, and then chasing them away ; 
and it welcomes with augmented attachment that 
object coming forth from them unstained ; as happy 
spirits at the last day will ];eceiv,e, with joy their 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 187 

bodies recovered from the dust in a state of purity 
that will leave every thing belong-ing to the dust 
behind, A zealous Christian exults to feel in con- 
tempt of how many counteracting- circumstances he 
can still love his religion ; and that this counterac- 
tion, by exciting- his understanding to make a more 
defined estimate of its excellence, has but made him 
love it the more. It has now pre-occupied even 
those avenues of taste and imagination, by Avhich 
alone the ungracious effect of associations could 
have been admitted. The thing itself is close to his 
mind, and therefore the causes which would have 
misrepresented it, by coming between, have lost 
their power. As he hears the sentiments of sincere 
Christianity from the weak and illiterate, he says to 
himself — All this is indeed little, but I am happy to 
feel that the subject itself is great, and that this 
humble display of it cannot make it appear to me 
different from what I absolutely know it to be ; any 
more than a clouded atmosphere can diminish my 
impression of the grandeur of the heavens, after I 
have so often beheld the pure azure, and the host of 
stars. I am glad that it has in this man all the con- 
solatory and all the purifying efficacy, which I wish 
that my more elevated views of it may not fail to 
have in me. This is the chief end for which a divine 
communication can have been granted to the world. 
If this religion, instead of being designed to make 
its disciples pure and happy aniidst their littleness, 
had required to receive lustre from their mental dig- 
nity, it would have been sent to none of us. At least, 
not to me ; for though I would be grateful for an order 
of ideas somewhat superior to those of my unculti- 
vated fellow Christian, I am conscious that the no- 
blest forms of thought in which 1 apprehend, or could 
represent, the subject, do but contract its amplitude, 
do but depress its sublimity. Those superior spirits 
who are said to rejoice over the first proof of the 
efficacy of divine truth, have rejoiced over its intro- 
duction, even in so humble a form, into the mind of 
this man, and probably see in fact but little differ- 



188 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

ence, in point of speculative greatness, between his 
manner of viewing and illustrating- it and mine. If 
Jesus Christ could be on earth as before, he would 
receive this disciple, and benignantly approve, for 
its operation on the heart, that faith in his doctrines, 
which men of taste might be tempted to despise for 
its want of intellectual refinement. And since all 
his true disciples are destined to attain greatness at 
length, the time is coming, when each pious though 
now contracted mind will do justice to this high 
subject. Meanwhile, such as this subject will appear 
to the intelligence of immortals, and such as it will 
be expressed in their eloquence, such it really is 
now; and I should deplore the perversity of my 
mind, if I felt more disposed to take the character of 
the religion from that style of its exhibition in which 
it appears humiliated, than from that in which I am 
assured it will be sublime. If, while we are all ad- 
vancing to meet the revelations of eternity, I have a 
more vivid and comprehensive idea than these less 
privileged Christians, of the glory of our religion, as 
displayed in the New Testament, and if I can much 
more delightfully participate the sentiments which 
devout genius has uttered in the contemplation of it, 
I am therefore called upon to excel them as much 
in devotedness to this religion, as I have a more 
luminous view of its excellence. 

Let the spirit of the evangelical system once gain 
the ascendency, and it may thus defy the impressions 
tending to associate disagreeable ideas with its prin- 
ciples ; as the angels in the house of Lot forced 
away the unworthy assailants. But it requires a 
most extraordinary energy of conviction to obtain a 
cordial reception for these principles, if such impres- 
sions have pre-occupied the mind. And that they 
should thus have pre-occupied the man of taste, is 
not wonderful, if you consider how early, hoAv often, 
and by what diversities of the same general cause, 
they may have been made on him. As the gospel 
comprises an ample assemblage of intellectual views, 
and as the greater number of Christians are inevita' 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 189 

bly disqualified to do justice to them, even in any 
degree, by the same causes which disqualify them to 
do justice to other intellectual subjects, it is not 
improbable, that the greater number of expressions 
which he has heard in his whole life, have been utter- 
ly below the subject. Obviously this is a very serious 
circumstance ; for if he had heard as much spoken 
on any other intellectual subject, as, for instance, 
poetry, or astronomy, for which perhaps he has a 
passion, and if a similar proportion of what he had 
heard had been as much below the subject, he would 
probably have acquired but little partiality for either 
of those studies. And it is a very melancholy dispo- 
sition against the human heart, tHat the gospel needs 
fewer unfavourable associations to become repulsive 
in it, than any other important subject. 

The injurious impressions have perhaps struck his 
mind in many ways. For instance, he has met with 
some zealous Christians, who not only were very 
slightly acquainted with the evidences of the truth, 
and the illustrations of the reasonableness, of their 
religion, but who actually felt no interest in the in- 
quiry. Perhaps more than one individual attempted 
to deter him from pursuing it, by suggesting that 
inquiry either implies doubt, which was pronounced 
a criminal state of mind, or will probably lead to it, 
as a judgment on the profane curiosity which, on 
such a subject, was not satisfied with implicitly be- 
lieving. It was thought that an attempt to examine 
the foundation would be likely to end in a wish to 
demolish the structure. 

He may sometimes have heard the discourse of 
sincere Christians, whose religion involved no intel- 
lectual exercise, and, strictly speaking, no subject of 
intellect. Separately from their feelings, it had no 
definition, no topics, no distinct succession of views. 
And if he or some other person attempted to talk on 
some part of the religion itself, as a thing definable 
and importafnt, independently of the feelings of any 
individual, and as consisting in a vast congeries of 
ideas^ relating to the divine government of the world, 



190 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

to the general nature of the economy disclosed by 
the Messiah, to the distinct doctrines in the theory 
of that economy, to moral principles, and to the great- 
ness of the future prospects of man, — they seem- 
ed to have no concern in that religion, and impa- 
tiently interrupted the subject with the observation 
— That is not experience. 

Others he has heard continually recurring to two 
or three points of opinion, selected perhaps in con- 
formity to a system, or perhaps in consequence of 
some casual direction of the individual's thoughts, 
and asserted to be the life and essence of Christian- 
ity. These opinions he has heard zealously though 
not argumentatively defended, even when they were 
not attacked or questioned. If they were called in 
question, it was an evidence not less of depraved 
principle than of perverted judgment. All other 
religious truths were represented as deriving their 
authority and importance purely from these, and 
indeed as deriving so little authority and importance, 
that it was almost needless ever to advert to them. 
The neglect of constantly repeating and enforcing 
these opinions was said to be the chief cause of the 
melancholy failure attending the efforts to promote 
Christianity in the world, and of the decay of partic- 
ular religious societies. Though he could not per- 
ceive how these points were essential to Christianity, 
even admitting them to be true, they were made the 
sole and decisive standard for distinguishing between 
a genuine and a false profession of it. And perhaps 
they were abruptly applied in eager haste to any 
sentiment which he happened to express concerning 
religion, as a test of its quality, and a proof of its 
corruptness. 

In some instances, he may have observed some 
one idea or doctrine, though not especially sanc- 
tioned by any system, to have so monopolized the 
mind, that every conversation, from whatever point 
of the compass it started, was certain to find its way 
to the favourite topic, while he was sometimes fret- 
ted, sometimes amused, and never much improved, 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 191 

by observing- its progress to the appointed place. If 
his situation and connexions rendered it unavoidable 
for him often to hear this unfortunate manner of 
discoursing on religion, his mind probably fell into a 
fault very similar to that of his well-meaning ac- 
quaintance. As this worthy man could never speak 
on the subject without soon bringing the whole of 
it down to one particular point, so the more refined 
and intellectual listener became unable to think on 
the subject without adverting- immediately to the 
narrow illustration of it exhibited by this one man. 
In consequence of this connexion of ideas, he perhaps 
became disinclined to think on the subject at all ; or, 
if he was disposed or constrained to think of it, he was 
so averse to let iiis views of Christianity thus con- 
verge to the littleness of a point, that he laboured to 
expand them, till they lost all specifically evangelical 
distinctions in the wideness of generality and ab- 
straction. 

Again — the majority of Christians are precluded, 
by their condition in life, from any acquirement of 
general knowledge. It would be unpardonable in 
this more cultivated man, not to make the allowance 
for the natural effect of this circumstance on the 
extent of their religious ideas. But he has met with 
numbers, who had no inconsiderable means, both as 
to money, judging by their unnecessary expenses, 
and as to leisure, judging by the quantity of time 
consumed in useless "chat, or in needless sleep, to 
furnish their minds with various information, but 
who were quite on a level, in this respect, with those 
of the humblest rank. They never even suspected 
that knowledge could have any connexion with reli- 
gion ; or that they could not be as clearly and amply 
in possession of the g-reat subject as a man whose 
faculties had been exercised, and whose extended 
acquaintance with thino-s would supply an endless 
series of ideas illustrative of religion. He has per- 
haps even heard them make a kind of merit of their 
indifference to knowledge, as if it were the proof or 



192 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

the result of a higher value for religion. If a hint of 
wonder was insinuated at their reading so little, and 
within so very confined a scope, it would be replied, 
that they thought it enough to read the Bible ; as if 
it were possible for a person whose mind fixes with 
inquisitive attention on what is before him, even to 
read through the Bible without thousands of such 
questions being started in his thoughts as can be 
answered only from sources of information extrane- 
ous to the Bible. But he perceived that this reading 
the Bible was no work of inquisitive thought ; and 
indeed he has commonly found that those who have 
no wish for any thing like a general improvement in 
knowledge, have no disposition for the real business 
of thinking even in religion, and that their discourse 
on that subject is the exposure of intellectual pover- 
ty. He has seen them live on for a number of years 
content with the same confined views, the same 
meagre list of topics, and the same uncouth religious 
language. In so inconsiderable a space of time, the 
diligent investigation of truth would have given 
much more clearness to their faculties, and much 
more precision to the articles of their belief. They 
might have ramified the few leading articles, into a 
rich diversity of subordinate principles and important 
inferences. They might have learned to place the 
Christian truth in all those combinations with the 
other parts of our knowledge, by which it is enabled 
to present new and striking aspects, and to multiply 
its arguments to the understanding, and its appeals 
to the heart. They might have rendered nature, 
history, and the present views of the moral world,, 
tributary to the illustration and the effect of their 
religion. But they neglected, and even despised, 
all these means of enlarging their ideas of a subject 
which they professed to hold of infinite importance. 
Yet, perhaps, if this man of more intellectual habits 
showed but little interest in conversing with them 
on that subject, or seemed designedly to avoid it, this 
W9,s considered as pure aversion to yeligion ; aod, 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 193 

what had been uninteresting to him as a doctrine, 
then became revolting as reproof.* 

He may not unfrequently have heard worthy but 
illiterate persons expressing their utmost admiration 
of'Sayings, passages in booKS, or public discourses, 
which he could not help perceiving to be hardly 
sense, or to be the dictates of conceit, or to be com- 
mon-place inflated to fustian. While, on the other 
hand, if he has introduced a favourite passage, or an 
admired book, they have perhaps shown no percep- 
tion of its beauty, or expressed a doubt of its ten- 
dency, from its not being in canonical diction. Or, 
perhaps they have directly avowed that they could 
not understand it, in a manner that very plainly im- 
plied that therefore it was of no value. Possibly 
when he has expressed his high admiration of some 
of the views of the gospel, such, for instance, as 
struck the mind of Rousseau, he has been mortified 
to find that some sublime distinctions of the religion 
of Christ are lost to many of his disciples, from being 
of too abstract a kind for the apprehension of any 
but improved and reflective men. 

If he had generally found in those professed Chris- 
tians whose intellectual powers and attainments 
were small, a candid humility, instructing them, 
while expressing their animated gratitude for what 
acquaintance with religion they had been able to 
attain, and for the immortal hopes springing from it, 
to feel that they had but a confined view of the sub- 
ject which is of immense variety and magnitude, he 
would have been too much pleased by this amiable 
feeling, to be much repelled by the defective char- 
acter of their conceptions and expressions. But 
often, on the contrary, he has observed such a com- 
placent sense of sufficiency in the little sphere, as if 
it self-evidently comprised every thing which it is 
possible, or which it is of consequence, for any mind 
to see in the Christian religion. They were like 

* I own that wliat T said of Jesus Christ's pladly receiving one 
of the hmnhler intellectiml order for his disciple, will but ill apply 
to some of tlie characters that I describe. 

17 



194 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

persons who should doubt the information that an 
infinitely greater number of stars can be seen through 
a telescope than they ever beheld, and who should 
have no curiosity to try. 

Many Christians may have appeared to him to at- 
tach an extremely disproportionate importance to 
the precise modes of religious observances, not only 
in the hour of controversy respecting them, when 
they are always extravagantly magnified, but in the 
habitual course of their religious references. These 
modes may be either such as are adhered to by 
whole communities of Christians, perhaps as their 
respective marks of distinction from one another ; 
or any smaller ceremonial peculiarities, devised and 
pleaded for by particular individuals or families. 

The religious habit of some Christians may have 
disgusted him excessively. Every thing which could 
even distantly remind him of grimace, would inevit- 
ably do this ; as, for instance, a solemn lifting up of 
the eyes, artificial impulses of the breath, grotesque 
and regulated gestures and postures in religious 
exercises, an affected faltering of the voice, and, I 
might add, abrupt religious exclamations in common 
discourse, though they were even benedictions to 
the Almighty, which he has often heard so ill-timed 
as to have an irreverent and almost a ludicrous 
effect. In a mind such as I am supposing, the hap- 
piest improvement in point of veneration for genuine 
religion will produce no tolerance still for such hab- 
its. Nor will the dislike to them be lessened by 
ever so perfect a conviction of the sincere piety of 
any of the persons who have fallen into them. 

In the conversation of illiterate Christians he has 
perhaps frequently heard the most unfortunate met- 
aphors and similies, employed to explain or enforce 
evangelical sentiments ; and probably, if he twenty 
times recollected one of those sentiments, or if he 
heard a similar one from some other quarter, the 
repulsive figure was sure to recur to his imnffination. 
If he has heard so many of these, that each Christian 
topic has acquired its appropriate images, you can 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 195 

easily conceive what a lively perception of the im- 
portance of the subject itself must be requisite to 
overcome the disgust and banish the associations. 
The feeling accompanying- these topics, as connect- 
ed with these ideas, will be somewhat like that 
which spoils the pleasure of reading a noble poet, 
Virgil for instance, when each admired passage re- 
calls the images into which it has been degraded in 
that kind of imitation denominated travesty. It may 
be added, that the reluctance to think of the subject 
because it is connected with these ideas, strengthens 
that connexion. For often the earnest wish not to 
dwell on the disagreeable images, produces a mis- 
chievous reaction by which they press in more for- 
cibly. The tenacity with which ideas adhere to the 
mind, is in proportion to the degree of interest, 
whether pleasing or unpleasing, which accompanies 
them ; and an idea cannot well be accompanied by 
a stronger kind of interest than the earnest wish to 
escape from it. If we could cease to dislike it, it 
would soon cease to haunt us. It may also be ob- 
served, that the infrequency of thinking upon the 
evangelical subjects, will confirm the injurious asso- 
ciations. The same mental law operates in regard 
to subjects as to persons. If any unfortunate inci- 
dent, or any circumstance of expression or conduct, 
displeased us in our first meeting with a person, it 
will be strongly recalled each subsequent time that 
we see him, if we meet him but seldom ; on the 
contrary, if our intercourse with a person becomes 
frequent or habitual, such a first unpleasing circum- 
stance, and many following ones may be forgotten. 
This observation might be of some use to a man that 
really wishes to dissolve in his mind the connexion 
between evangelical subjects and such disagreeable 
ideas ; as he will perceive that one of the most 
effectual means would be, to make those subjects 
familiar by often thinking on them. 

While remarking on the effect of unpleasing 
images employed to illustrate Christian principles, I 
cannot help wishing that religious teachers were 



196 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

aware of the propriety of not amplifying the less 
dignified class of those metaphors which it may be 
proper enough sometimes to introduce, and which 
perhaps are employed, in a short and transient way 
in the Bible. I shall notice only that common one 
in which the benefits and pleasures of religion are 
represented under the image of food. I do not re- 
collect that, in the New Testament at least, this 
metaphor is ever drawn to a great length. But from 
the facility of the process, it is not strange that it 
has been amplified both in books and discourses into 
the most extended descriptions ; and the dining- 
room has been exhausted of images, and the lan- 
guage ransacked for substantives and adjectives, to 
stimulate the spiritual palate. The metaphor is 
combined with so many terms in our language, that 
it will sometimes unavoidably occur ; and when 
employed in the simplest and shortest form, it may, 
by transiently suggesting the analogy, assist the 
thought without lessening the subject. But it is 
degrading to spiritual ideas to be extensively and 
systematically transmuted, I might say cooked^ into 
sensual ones. The analogy between meaner things 
and dignified ones should never be pursued further 
than one or two points of necessary illustration ; for 
if it is traced to every circumstance in which a re- 
semblance can be found or fancied, the meaner thing 
no longer serves the humble and useful purpose of 
merely illustrating some qualities of the great one, 
but becomes formally its representative and equal. 
By their being made to touch at all points, the meaner 
is constituted a scale to measure and to limit the 
magnitude of the superior, and thus the importance 
of the one shrinks to the insignificance of the other. 
It will take some time for a man to recover any great 
degree of solemnity in thinking on the delights or 
the supports of religion, after he has seen them re- 
duced into all the forms of eating and drinking. In 
such detailed analogies it often happens, that the 
most fanciful, or that the coarsest points of the re- 
semblance, remain longest in the thoughts. When 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 197 

the mind has been taught to descend to a low man- 
ner of considering divine truth, it will easily descend 
to the lowest. There is no such violent tendency 
to abstraction and sublimity in the minds of the 
generality of readers and hearers, as to render it 
necessary to take any great pains for the purpose of 
retaining their ideas in some small degree of alliance 
with matter. 

The preceding pages are a short description of 
some of the prominent circumstances of repellency, 
which are connected with evangelical religion by 
means of its uncultivated and injudicious professors; 
and more might have been added. After such a 
description, it would be unjust not to observe that 
some Christians, of a subordinate intellectual order, 
are distinguished by such an unassuming simplicity, 
by so much refinement of conscience, and by a piety 
so fervent and even exalted, that it would imply a 
very perverted state of mind in a cultivated man, if 
these examples did not operate, notwithstanding the 
confined scope of their ideas, to attract him toward 
the faith which renders them so happy and excellent^ 
rather than to repel him from it. But 1 am supposing 
his mind to be in a perverted state, and am far from 
the impiety of defending him. This supposition, 
however, being made, I feel no surprise, on survey- 
ing the majority of the persons composing evangel- 
ical communities, that this man has acquired an 
accumulation of prejudices against some of the dis- 
tinguishing features of the gospel. Permitting hini- 
self to feel as if the circumstances which thus di- 
minish or distort an order of Christian sentiments, 
were inseparable from it, he is inclined to regret 
that there should be any divine sanctions against 
his framing for himself, on the foundation of those 
principles in Christianity which he cannot but ad- 
mire, Ijut with a qualifying intermixture of foreign 
elements, a more liberalized scheme of religion. 

It was especially unfortunate if, in the advanced 
stage of this man's perhaps highly cultivated youth, 
while he was exulting in the conscious enlargement 



198 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

of intellect, and the quickening- and vivid percep- 
tiveness of taste, but was still to be regarded as in 
a degree the subject of education, it was his lot to 
have the principles of religion exhibited and incul- 
cated in a repulsive language and cast of thought 
by the seniors of his family or acquaintance. In 
that case, the unavoidable frequency of intercourse 
must have rendered the counteractive operation of 
the unpleasing circumstances, associated with Chris- 
tian truth, almost incessant. And it would naturally 
become continually stronger. For each repetition 
of that which offended his refined intellectual habits, 
would incite him to value and cherish them the 
more, and to cultivate them according to a standard 
still more foreign from all congeniality with his in- 
structors. These habits he began and continued to 
acquire from books of elegant sentiment or philo- 
sophical research, which he read in disregard of the 
advice, perhaps, to read scarcely any but works 
specifically religious. To such studies he has again 
and again returned with an animated rebound from 
systematic common-places, whether delivered in 
private or in public instruction ; and has felt the full 
contrast between the force, lustre, and mental rich- 
ness, accompanying the moral speculations or poet- 
ical visions of genius, and the manner in which the 
truths of the gospel had been conveyed. He was 
not serious and honest enough to make, when in 
retirement, any deliberate trial of abstracting these 
truths from the shape in which they were thus un- 
happily set forth, in order to see what they would 
appear in a better. He could easily have transferred 
them into this better form ; or, at least, if he could 
not, he had but a very small portion of that mental 
superiority, of which he was congratulating himself 
that his disgusts were an evidence. But his sense 
of the duty of doing this was perhaps less cogent, 
from his perceiving that the evangelical doctrines 
were inculcated by his relatives with no less defi- 
ciency of the means of proving them true, than of 
rendering them interesting; and he could easily 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 199 

discern that his instructers had received the articles 
of their faith implicitly from a class of teachers, or a 
religious community, Avithout even a subsequent 
exercise of reasonino- to confirm what they had thus 
adopted. They believed these articles through the 
habit of hearing them, and maintained them by the 
habit of believing them. The recoil of his feelings, 
therefore, did not alarm his conscience with the 
conviction of its being absolutely the truth of God, 
that, under this uninviting form, he was reluctant to 
embrace. Unaided by such a conviction already 
existing in him, and unarmed with a force of argu- 
ment sufficient to impress it, the seriousness, perhaps 
sometimes harsh seriousness, of his friends, inces- 
santly asserting his mind to be in a fatal condition, 
till he should think and feel exactly as they did, was 
little likely to conciliate his repugnance. When 
sometimes their admonitions took the mild or pathet^ 
ic tone, his respect for their piety, and his gratitude 
for their affectionate solicitude, had perhaps a mo- 
mentary effect to make him earnestly wish he could 
abdicate every intellectual refinement, and adopt in 
pious simplicity all their feelings and ideas. But as 
the contracted views, the rude figures, and the mix- 
ture of systematic and illiterate language, recurred, 
his mind would again revolt, and compel him to say. 
This cannot, will not, be my mode of r6ligion. 

Now, one wishes there had boen some enlightened 
friend to say to such a man, Why will you not un- 
derstand that there is no necessity for this to be the 
mode of your religion ? By what want of acuteness 
do you fail to distinguish between the mode, (a mere 
extrinsic and casual mode,) and the substance ? In 
the world of nature you see the same simple elements 
wrought into the plainest and most beautiful, into 
the most diminutive and the most majestic forms. 
So the same simple principles of Christian truth may 
constitute the basis of a very inferior, or a very no- 
ble, order of ideas. The principles themselves have 
an invariable quality ; but they were not imparted 
to man to be fixed in the mind as so many bare sci- 



200- (ETN THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

entific propositions,, each confined to one single 
mode of conception, without any collateral ideasy 
and to be always expressed in one unalterable form 
of words. They are placed there in order to spread 
out, if I might so express it, into a great multitude 
and diversity of ideas and feelings. These ideas 
and feelings, forming round the pure, simple princi- 
plesj will correspond, and will make those principles 
seem to correspond, to the meaner or more dignified 
intellectual rank of the mind. Why will you not 
perceive that the subject which takes so humble a 
style in its less intellectual believers, unfolds greater 
proportions through a gradation of larger and still 
larger faculties, and with facility occupies the whole 
capacity- of the amplest, in the same manner as the 
ocean fills a gulf as easily as a creek? Througb 
this series it retains an identity of its essential prin- 
ciplesj and appears progressively a noblierthing only 
fey gaining a position for more nobly displaying it- 
self. Why will you not follow it through this gra- 
dation, till it reach the point where it is presented 
in a greatness of character, to correspond with the 
improved state of your mind ? Never fear lest the 
gospel should prove not sublime enough for the 
elievation of your thoughts. If you could attain an 
intellectual eminence from which you would look 
with pity on the rank which you at present hold, you 
would still find the dignity of this subject occupying 
your level, and rising above it. Do you doubt this ? ' 
What then do you think of such spirits, for instance, 
as those of Milton and Pascal ? And by how many 
degrees of the intellectual scale shallyours surpass 
them, to authorize your feeling that to l)e little which 
they felt to be great? They were often conscious 
of the magnificence of Christian truth filling, dis- 
tending, and exceeding, their faculties, and some- 
tinges wished for greater powers to do it justice. In 
their noblest contemplations, they did not feel their 
minds elevating the subject, but the subject elevat- 
ing their minds. Now, consider that their views of 
^e gospe! were, in: essence, the same with those ofJ 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 201 

its meanest sincere disciples ; and that therefore 
many sentiments which, by their unhappy form, have 
disgusted you so much, bore a faithful though hum- 
ble analogy to the ideas of these sublime Christians. 
Why then, while hearing such sentiments, have you 
not learnt the habit of darting upward, by means of 
this analogy, to the noblest style of the subject, in- 
stead of abandoning the subject itself in the recoil 
from the unfortunate mode of presenting it ? Have 
you not cause to fear that your dislike goes deeper 
than the mode of its appearance ? For, else, would 
you not anxiously seek, and rejoice to meet, the 
divine subject in that lustre of array, that transfig- 
uration of aspect, by which its grandeur is thus 
redeemed ? 

I would make a solemn appeal to the understand- 
ing and the conscience of such a man. I would say 
to him, Is it among the excellences of a mind of 
taste, that it loses, when the religion of Christ is 
concerned, all the value of its discrimination ? Do 
you not absolutely know that the littleness which 
you see investing that religion is adventitious ? Are 
you not certain that in hearing the discourse of such 
men, if they were now to be found, as those that I 
have named, the evangelical truths would appear to 
you most sublime, and that they cannot be less noble 
in fact than they would appear as displayed from 
those minds ? But even suppose that they also failed, 
and that all modern Christians, without exception, 
had conspired to give an unimpressive aspect to the 
subject of their profession, do you never read the 
New Testament ? If you do, is it in that state of 
susceptible seriousness, without which you will have 
no just perception of its character ; without which 
you are but like an ignorant clown who, happening 
to look at the heavens, perceives nothing more aw- 
ful in that wilderness of suns than in the row of 
lamps along the streets ? If you do read that book 
in the better state of feeling, I have no comprehen- 
sion of the mechanism pf your mind, if the first per- 
ception would not be that of a simple venerable 
18 



202 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

dignity, and if the second would not be that of a 
certain abstract, undefinable magnificeiice ; a per-» 
ception of something which, behfnd this simplicity,* 
expands into a greatness beVoiid the eompass of 
your mind; an impression like that "vtith which a 
thoughtful man wotit(^ have looked on the counter 
nance of Newton, after he had published his discov^ 
eries, feeling a kind of mystical absorption in the 
attempt to comprehend the magnitude of the soul 
residing within that form. When in this state of 
serious susceptibility, have you not also perceived, 
in the tharacter and the manner of the first apostles 
of this truth, while they were declaring it, an ex- 
pression of dignity, altogether different from that of 
other distinguished men, and much more refined 
and heavenly ? If you examined the cause, you 
perceived that the dignity arose partly from their 
being employed as living oracles of this truth, and 
still more from their whole characters being pervaded 
by its spirit. And have you not been sometimes 
conscious, for a moment, that if it possessed your 
sbul in the same manner as it did theirs, it would 
make you one of the most elevated of mortals ? You 
■would then display a combination of sanctity, devo- 
tion, disinterestedness, superiority to external things, 
energy, and exulting hope, in comparison of which 
the ambition of a conquei*or, or the pride of a self- 
admiring philosopher, would be a Very vulgar kind 
of dignity. You acknowledge these representations 
to be just ; you allow that the kind of sublimity 
which you have sometimes perceived in the New 
Testament, that the qualities of the apostolic spirit, 
and that the intellectual and moral greatness of some 
modern Christians, express the genuine character of 
the evangelical religion, and therefore evince its 
dignity. "But then, is it not niost disingenuous in 
you to allow the meanness which you know to be 
but associated and separable, to be admitted by your 
own mind as an excuse for its alienation from what 
is acknowledged to be the very contrary of mean- 
ness ? Ought you not to turn on yourself, with in- 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 203 

dignation at that want of rectitude which resigns 
you to the effect of these associations, or with con- 
tempt of the debility which tries in vain to break 
them ? Is it for you to be offended at the mental 
weakness of Christians ? yon, whose intellectual vig- 
our, and whose sense of justice, but leave you to 
sink helpless in the fastidiousness of sickly taste, 
and to lament that so many inferior spirits have been 
consoled and saved by this divine faith as to make it 
impossible for you to embrace it, even though your 
own salvation depend on it ? At the very same time 
perhaps this weakness takes the form of pride. Let 
that pride speak out; it would be curious to hear it 
say, that your mental refinement perhaps might have 
permitted you to take your ground on that eminence 
of the Christian faith where Milton and Pascal stood, 
if so many humbler beings did not disgrace it, by 
occupying the declivity and the vale. 

But, after all, what need of referring to illustrious 
names, as if the claims of that which you acknowl- 
edge to be from heaven should be made to depend on 
the number of those who have received it gracefully ; 
or, as if a rational being could calmly wait for his 
taste to be conciliated, before he would embrace a 
system by which his immortal interest is to be se- 
cured ? Fs the difference, as declared by the Su- 
preme Authority, between the consequences of cor- 
dially receiving or not receiving the evangelical 
system so small, that a solemn contemplation of it 
would not overwhelm you with wonder and mortifi- 
cation that so subordinate a counteraction could so 
long have made you unjust to yourself? And if you 
avoid this contemplation, will therefore the differ- 
ence, and the ultimate loss, prove the less serious 
because you would not exercise thought enough to 
anticipate it ? If the consequence should prove to 
be inexpressibly disastrous, will a perversity of re- 
finement appear a worthy cause for which to have 
incurred it? You deserve to be disgusted with a 
divine communication, and to lose its inestimable 
benefits, if you can thus let every thing have a 



204 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

greater influence on your feelings concerning it 
than its truth and importance, and if its accidental 
and separable associations with littleness, can coun- 
teract its essential inseparable ones with the Gov- 
ernor and Redeemer of the world, with happiness, 
and with eternity. With what compassion you might 
be justly regarded by an illiterate but zealous Chris- 
tian, whose interest in the truths of the New Testa- 
ment at once constitutes the best felicity here, and 
carries him rapidly toward the kingdom of his Fa- 
ther; while you are standing aloof, and perhaps 
thinking, that if he and all such as he were dead, 
you might, after a while, acquire the spirit which 
should impel you also toward heaven. But why do 
you not feel your individual concern in this great 
subject as absolutely as if all men were dea^, and 
you heard alone in the earth the voice of God ; or, 
as if you saw, like the solitary exile of Patmos, an 
awful appearance of Jesus Christ, and the visions of 
hereafter ? What is it to you that many Christians 
have given an aspect of littleness to the gospel, or 
that a few have displayed it in majesty. 



LETTER III. 

Another Cause the Peculiarity of Language adopted in religious discourse and 
Writing ...Classical Standard of Language... The theological Deviation from it 
barbarous.. .Surprise and Perplexity of a sensible heathen Foreigner, who, hav. 
ing learnt our Language according to its best Standard alone, should be intro- 
duced to hear a public evangelicil Discourse. ...Distinctive Characters of this 
Theological Dialect ...Reasons against employing it. ...Competence of our Lan- 
guage to express all religious Ideas without the aid of this uncouth Peculiarity..,. 
Advantages that would attend the Use of the Language of mere general Intelli- 
gence, with the Addition of an extremely small Number of Words that may be 
considered as necessary technical Terms in Theology. 

Another cause which I think has tended to ren- 
der evangelical religion less acceptable to persons 
of taste, is the peculiarity of language adopted in the 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 205 

discourses and books of its teachers, as well as in 
the relig-ious correspondence and conversation of 
Christians. I do not refer to any past age, when an 
excessive quaintness deformed the style of composi- 
tion, both on religion and all other subjects : my 
assertion is respecting the diction at present in use. 
' The works collectively of the best writers in the 
language have created and substantially fixed a 
standard of general phraseology. If any department 
is exempted from the authority of this standard, it is 
the low one of humour and buffoonery, in which the 
writer may coin and fashion phrases according to 
his whim. But in the language of higher, and of 
what may be called middle subjects, that authority 
is the law. It does indeed allow indefinite varieties 
of what is called style, since twenty pure and able 
writers might be cited, who have had each a differ- 
ent style ; but yet there is a certain general charac- 
ter of expression which they have mainly concurred 
to establish. This compound result of all their 
modes of Avriting is become sanctioned as the clas- 
sical manner of employing the language, as the form 
in which it constitutes the most pure general vehicle 
of thought. And, though it is difficult to define this 
standard, yet a well-read person of taste instantly 
feels when it is transgressed or deserted, and pro- 
nounces that no classical writer has employed that 
phrase or would have combined those words in such 
a manner. 

Now the deviations from this standard must be, 
first, by mean or vulgar diction, which is below it; 
or, secondly, by a ba'rbarous diction, which is out of 
it, or foreign to it ; or, thirdly, by a diction Avhich, 
thotigh foreign to it, i;« yet not to be termed barba- 
rous, becaiise it is elevated entirely above the au- 
thority of the standard, by a super-human force or 
majesty of thought, or a super-human communication 
of truth. 

I might make some charge against the language 
of divines under the first of these distinctions^; but 
my present attention is to what seems to me to come 



5306 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OP TASTE 

under the second character of difference from the 
standard, that of being- barbarous, — The phrases 
peculiar to any trade, profession,, or fraternity, are 
barbarous, if tHey were not low : they are commonly 
both. The language of law is felt by every one to 
be barbarous in the extreme, not only by the huge 
lumber of its technical terms, but by its very struc- 
ture, in such parts of it as do not consist of technical 
terms. The language of science is barbarous, as 
far as it differs arbitrarily, and in more than the use 
of those terms which are indispensable to the science, 
from the pure general model. And I am afraid that, 
on the same principle, the accustomed diction of 
evangelical religion also must be pronounced bar- 
barous. For I suppose it will be instantly allowed, 
that the mode of expression of the greater number 
of evangelical divines,* and of those taught by them, 
is widely different from the standard of general lan- 
guage, not only by the necessary adoption of some 
peculiar terms, but by a continued and systematic 
cast of phraseology ; insomuch that in reading or 
hearing five or six sentences of an evangelical dis- 
course, you ascertain the school by the mere turn 
of expression, independently of any attention to the 
quality of the ideas. If, in order to try what those 

* When I say evangeMcal divines, I concur witli the opinion of 
those, who deem a considerable, and, in an intellectual and lite- 
rary view, a hig;hly respectable class of the writers who have pro- 
fessedly taught Christianity, to be not strictly evanjrelical. They 
mijiht rather be denominated moral and philosophical divines, 
treating very ably on the generalities of religion, and on the 
Christian morals, but not placing the economy of redemption ex- 
actly in that light in which the New Testament appears to me to 
place it Fome of these have avoided the kind of dialect on which 
I am animadverting, not only by means of a diction more classical 
and dignified in the general principles of its structure, but also by 
avoiding the ideas with which the phrases of his dialect are com- 
monly associated. I niay, however, here observe, that it is by no 
means altogether confined to the specifically evangelical depart- 
ment of writing and discourse, though it there prevails the most, 
and with the greatest number of phrases. It extends, in some 
degree, into the majority of writing on religion in general, and 
may therefore be called the theological, almost as properly as tlie 
evangelical, dialect. 



- TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 207 

ideas would appear in an altered form of words, you 
attempted to reduce a paragraph to the language 
employed by intellectual men in speaking or writing 
well on general subjects, you would find it must be 
absolutely a version. There is no room and no need 
to collect phrases and quotations ; but you know 
how easily it could be done ; and the specimens 
would give the idea of an attempt to create, out of 
the general niass of the language, a dialect which 
should be intrinsically spiritual ; and so excessively 
appropriated to Christian doctrine as to be totally 
unserviceable for any other subject, and to become 
ludicrous when applied to it.* And this being ex- 
tracted, like the Sabbath from the common course 
of time, the general range of diction is abandoned, 
with all its powers, diversities, and elegance, to 
secular subjects and the use of the profane. It is a 
kind of popery of language, vilifying every thing 
not marked with the signs of the holjr church, and 
forbidding any one to minister to religion except in 
consecrated speech- 
Supposing that a heathen foreigner had acquired 
a full acquaintance with our language in its most 
classical construction, yet without learning any thing 
about the gospel, (which it is true enough he might 
do,) and that he then happened to read or hear an 
evangelical discourse — he would be exceedingly 
surprised at the strange cast of phraseology. He 
would probably be more arrested and occupied by 
the singularity of the diction than by that of the 
ideas ; whereas the general course of the diction 
should appear but the sajne as that to which he had 
been accustomed. It should be such that he would 
not even think of it, but only of the new subject and 
peculiar ideas which it should present to his view ; 

* This is so true, that it is no uneominon expedient with the 
would-be wits, to iKtroduce some of the spiritual phrases, in speait- 
ing of any thing which tbey wish to r«nder ludicrous ; and they 
are aenerally so far successful as to be rewarded by the laugih or 
the smile of the circle, who probably may never have had the 
privilege of hearing wit, and h^ye not the sense or conscience to 
care about lel igion. 



208 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

unless there could be some advantage in the neces- 
sity of looking at these ideas through the mist and 
confusion of the double medium, created by the 
superinduction of an uncouth dialect on a plain lan- 

fuage. — Or, if he were not a stranger to the subject, 
ut had acquired its leading principles from some 
author or speaker, Avho employed (with the addition 
of a very small number of peculiar terms) the same 
style in which any other serious subject would have 
been illustrated, he would still be not less surprised. 
' Is it possible,' he would say, as soon as he could 
apprehend what he was attending to, ' that these are 
the very same views which lately presented them- 
selves with such lucid simplicity to my understand- 
ing ? Or, is there something more, of which I am 
not aware, conveyed and concealed under these 
strange devices of phrase ? Is this another stage of 
the religion, the school of the adepts, in which I am 
not yet initiated ? And does religion then, every 
where, fis well as in my country, affect to show and 
guard its importance " by relinquishing the simple 
language of intelligence, and assuming an obscure 
dialect of its own ? Or, is this the diction of an in- 
dividual only, and of one who really intends but to 
convey the same ideas that I have elsewhere re- 
ceived in so much nore clear and direct a vehicle 
of words ? But then, in what remote corner, placed 
beyond the authority of criticism and the circulation 
of literature, where a noble language stagnates into 
barbarism, did this man study his religion and ac- 
quire his phrases ? Or, by what inconceivable per- 
version of taste and of labour has he framed, for the 
sentiments of his religion, a mode of expression so 
uncongenial with the eloquence of his country, and 
so adapted to dissociate them from all connexion 
with that eloquence ?' 

My dear friend, if I were not conscious of a solemn 
and cordial veneration for evangelical religion itself, 
I should be more afraid to tnist myself in making 
these observations on the usual manner of express- 
ing its ideas. If I am uncandid, I am willing to be 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 209 

corrected. Perhaps my description of this manner 
exHggerates ; but that there is a great and syste- 
matical difference between it and the true classical 
diction, is most palpably obvious, and 1 cannot help 
regarding it as an unfortunate circumstance. It 
gives the gospel too much the air of a professional 
thing, which must have its peculiar cast of phrases, 
for the mutual recognition of its proficients, in the 
same manner as other professions, arts, and myste- 
ries, have theirs. This is officiously placing the 
singularity of littleness to draw attention to the sin- 
gularity ©f greatness, which in the very act it mis- 
represents and obscures. It is giving an uncouth- 
ness of mien to a beauty which should attract all 
hearts. It is teaching a provincial dialect to the 
rising instructer of a world. It is imposing the guise 
of a cramped, formal ecclesiastic on what is destined 
for an universal monarch. 

Would it not be an improvement in the adminis- 
tration of religion, by discourse and writing, if Chris- 
tian truth were conveyed in that neutral vehicle of 
expression which is adapted indifferently to common 
serious subjects ? But it may be made a question, 
whether it c«7i be perfectly conveyed in such lan- 
guage. This point, therefore, requires a little con- 
sideration. — The diction on which I have animad- 
verted may be distinguished into three parts. 

The first is a peculiar mode of using various com- 
mon words. And this peculiarity consists partly in 
expressing ideas by such single words as do not 
simply and directly belong to them, instead of other 
single words which do simply and directly belong to 
them, and in general language are used to express 
them ;* and partly in using such combinations of 
w^ords as make uncouth phrases. Now, is this ne- 
cessary ? The answer to the question is immediately 
obvious as to the former part of the description ; 
there can be no need to use one common word in an 

* As, for instance, tnaJk, and convfrsatiov, instead of conduct, 
actions, or drpurtment; flesh, instead of, soinelimes body, souietjnies 
natural ivclination. 



210 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

affected manner to convey an idea which there is 
another common word at hand to express in the 
simplest and most usual manner. And then as to 
phrases, consisting of an uncouth combination of 
words which are common, and have no degree of 
technicality, — are they necessary? They are not 
absolutely necessary, unless each of these combina- 
tions conveys a thought of so exquisitely singular a 
signification, that no other conjunction of terms 
could have expressed it ; a thought which was never 
suggested by one mind to another till these three or 
four words happened to fall out of the general order 
of the language into the cluster of a peculiar phrase ; 
a thought which cannot be expressed in the language 
of another country that has not a correspondent idi- 
om ; and which will vanish from the world if ever 
this phrase shall be forgotten. But these combina- 
tions of words have no such pretensions. They will 
seldom appear to express a meaning which it requir- 
ed such a fortunate or such a dexterous expedient 
to bring and to retain within the scope of our ideas. 
Very often their sense is of so general and common 
a kind, that you could easily have expressed it in 
live or ten different forms of words. Some of these 
phrases would seem to have been originally the 
mere produce of affectation ; and some to have been 
invented to give an appearance of particular signifi- 
cance to ideas which were so plain and common, 
that they seemed to have no force as exhibited in 
the ordinary cast of diction. In religion, as in other 
departments, artificial turns of expression have often 
been resorted to, in order to relieve the obvious 
plainness of the thought. In whatever manner, 
however, the language was first perverted into these 
artificial modes, it would be easj^ to try whether they 
are become such special and privileged vehicles of 
thought that no other forms of words can express 
what is supposed to be their sense. And it would 
be found that these phrases, as it is within our fa- 
miliar experience that all phrases, consisting of only 
common words, a?id haying no relation to art or 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 211 

science, can be exchanged for several different com- 
binations of words, without materially altering the 
thought or lengthening the expression. I conclude, 
then, that what I have described as the first part of 
the theological dialect, the peculiar mode of using 
common words, is not absolutely necessary as a ve- 
hicle of Christian truths. 

The second part of the diction consists, not in a 
peculiar mode of using common words, but in a class 
of words peculiar in themselves, as being seldom 
used except by divines, but of which the meaning 
*can with perfect ease be expressed, without defini- 
tion or circumlocution, by other single terms which 
are in general use. For example, edification, tribu- 
lation, blessedness, godliness, righteousness, carnal- 
ity, lusts, (a term peculiar and theological only in 
the plural,) could be exchanged for parallel terms 
too obvious to need mentioning. It is true, indeed, 
that there are very few terms, if any, perfectly sy- 
nonymous. But when there are several words of 
very similar though not exactly the same significa- 
tion, and none of them belong to an art or science, 
the one which is selected is far more frequently 
used in that general meaning by which it is merely 
equivalent to the others, than in that precise shade 
of meaning by which it is distinguished from them. 
The words instruction, improvement, for instance, 
may not express exactly the sense of edification ; 
but the word edification is probably not often used 
by a writer or speaker with any recollection of that 
peculiarity of its meaning by which it differs from 
the meaning of improvement or instruction. This is 
still more true of some other words, as, for example, 
tribulation and affliction. Whatever small difference 
of import these words may have from their etymolo- 
gy, it is probable that no man ever wrote tribulation 
rather than affliction on account of that difference. 
If, in addition to these two, the word distress has 
occurred to the mind, the selection of any one from 
the three has perhaps always been determined by 
habit, or accident, rather than by any perception of 



212 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

a distinct signification. The same remark will, in a 
srreat measure, apply to the words blessed, happy, 
righteous, virtuous, carnal, sensual, and a multitude 
of others. So that though there are few words in 
strict truth synonymous, yet there are very many 
which are so in effect, even by the allowance and 
sanction of the most rigid laws to which the best 
writers have conformed their composition. Perhaps 
this is a defect in human thinking, of which the 
ideal perfection may be, that every conception should 
be so exquisitely discriminative and precise, that no 
two words, which have the most refined shade of 
diff^erence in their meaning, should be equally pnd 
indifferently eligible to express that conception. But 
what writer or speaker will ever even aspire to such 
perfection? — not to say, that if he did, he would 
soon find the vocabulary of the most copious lan- 
guage deficient of single, direct, terms to mark all 
the sensible modifications of his ideas. If a divine 
felt that he had such extreme discrimination of 
thought, that he meant something clearly different 
by the words, carnal, godly, edifying, and so of many 
others, from what he could express by the words, 
sensual, pious, religious, instructive, he would cer- 
tainly do right to adhere to the more peculiar words ; 
but if he does not, he may perhaps improve the ve- 
hicle, without hurting the material, of his religious 
communications, by adopting the general and clas- 
sical mode of expression. 

The third distinction of the theological dialect 
consists in words almost peculiar to the language of 
divines, and for which equivalent terms cannot be 
found, except in the form of definition or circumlo- 
cution. Sanctification, grace, covenant, salvation, 
and a few more, may be assigned to this class. These 
maybe called, in a qualified sense, the technical 
terms of evangelical religion. Now, separately from 
any religious considerations, it is plainly necessary, 
in a literary view, that all those terms that express 
a modification of thought which there are no other 
words competent to express, without great. circum- 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 213 

locution, should be retained. They are requisite to 
the perfection of the language. And then, in con- 
sidering those terms as connected with the Christian 
truth, I am ready to admit, that it will be of advan- 
tage to that truth, for some of those peculiar modes 
of thought of which it partly consists, to be perma- 
nently denominated by certain peculiar words which 
shall stand as its technical terms. But here several 
thoughts suggest themselves. 

First, The definitions of some of these Christian 
terms are not absolutely unquestionable. The words 
have assumed the specific formality of technical 
terms, without having completely the quality and 
value of such terms. A certain laxity in their sense 
render them of far less use, in their department, than 
the terms of science, especially of mathematical sci- 
ence, are in theirs. Technical terms have been the 
lights of science, but, in many instances, the shades 
of religion. It is most unfortunate, when, in dis- 
quisitions or instructions, the grand leading words 
on which the force of all the rest depends, have not 
a precise and indisputable signification. The effect 
is similar to that which takes place in the ranks of 
an army, when an officer has a doubtful opinion, or 
gives indistinct orders. What I would infer from 
these observations, is, that a Christian writer or 
speaker will occasionally do well, instead of using 
the peculiar term, to express at length in other 
words, at the expense of much circumlocution, that 
idea which he would have wished to convey if he 
had used that peculiar term. I do not mean that he 
should do this so often as to render the term obsolete. 
It might be useful sometimes, especially in verbal 
instruction, both to introduce the term, and to give 
such a sentence as I have described. Such an ex- 
pletive repetition of the idea will more than compen- 
sate for the tediousness by the clearness,* 

Secondly, If the definitions of the Christian pecu- 

* It is needless to observe that this would be a superfluous la- 
bour, with respect to the most simple of the peculiar words j such, 
for instance, as salvation. 



214 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

liar terms were even as precise and fixed as those 
of scientific denominations, yet the nature of the 
subject is such as to permit an indolent mind to pro- 
nounce or to hear these terms without recollecting 
those definitions. In delivering or writing-, and in 
hearing or reading, a mathematical lecture, both the 
teacher and the pupil are compelled to form in their 
minds the exact idea which each technical term has 
been defined to signify; else the whole" train of 
words is mere sound and inanity. But in religion, a 
man has a feeling of having some general ideas con- 
nected with all the words as he hears them, though 
he perhaps never studies, or does not retain, the 
definition of one. I shall have occasion to repeat 
this remark, and therefore do not enlarge here. The 
inference is the same as under the former observa- 
tion ; it is, that the technical terms of Christianity 
will contribute little to precision of thought, unless 
the ideas which they signify are often expressed at 
length in other words, either in explanation of those 
terms when introduced, or in substitution for them 
when omitted. 

Thirdly, It is not in the power of single theolog- 
ical terms, however precise their definitions may at 
any time have been, to secure to their respective 
ideas an unalterable stability. Unless the ideas 
themselves, by being often expressed in common 
words, preserve the signification of the terms, the 
terms will not preserve the accuracy of the ideas. 
This is true no doubt of the technical terms of sci- 
ence ; but- it is true in a much more striking manner 
of the peculiar words in theology. If the technical 
terms of science, at least of the strictest kind of 
science, were to cease to mean what they had been 
defined to mean, they would cease to mean any 
thing, and the change would be only from knowledge 
to ignorance. But, in the Christian theology, the 
change might be from truth to error; since the pe- 
culiar words might cease to mean what they were 
once defined to mean, by being employed in a dif- 
ferent sense. It may not be diflacult to conjecture 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 215 

in what sense conversion and regeneration, two 
more of the peculiar words, were used by the re- 
formers, and the men who may be called the fathers 
of the established church of this country ; but what 
sense have they subsequently borne in the writings 
of many of its divines ? The peculiar words may 
remain, when the ideas, which they were intended 
to perpetuate, are gone. Thus, instead of being the 
signs of those ideas, they become their monuments, 
and monuments profaned into abodes for the living 
enemies of the departed. It must indeed be ac- 
knowledged, that in many cases innovations of doc- 
trine have been introduced partly by ceasing to 
emplojr the words which designated the doctrines 
which it was wished to render obsolete ; but, it is 
probable, they may have been still more frequently 
and successfully introduced under the advantage of 
retaining the terms while the principles were grad- 
ually subverted. And therefore I shall be pardoned 
for repeating this once more, that since the peculiar 
words can be kept in one invariable signification 
only by keeping that signification clearly in sight 
by means of something separate from these words 
themselves, it would be wise in Christian authors 
and speakers sometimes to express the ideas in 
common words, either in expletive and explanatory 
connexion with the peculiar terms, or occasionally, 
instead of them. 1 would still be understood to ap- 
prove most entirely of the habitual use of a few of 
this class of terms ; while the above observations 
may tend to deduct ver}r much from the usual esti- 
mate of their value and importance. 

These pages have attempted to show, in what par- 
ticulars the language adopted by a great proportion 
of Christian divines might be modified, and yet re- 
main faithful to the principles of Christian doctrine. 
— Such common words as have acquired an affected 
cast in theological use, might give place to the other 
common words which express the ideas in a plain 
and unaffected manner ; and the phrases formed of 



216 ON THE AVERSION Or MEN OF TASTE 

common words uncouthly combined, may be dis- 
missed. — Many peculiar and antique words might 
be exchanged for other single words, of equivalent 
signification-, and in general use. — ifVnd the small 
number of peculiar terms acknowledged and estab- 
lished as of permanent use and necessity, might, 
even separately from the consideration of modifying 
the diction, be often, with advantage to the explicit 
declaration and clear comprehension of Christian 
truth, made to give place to a fuller expression, in a 
number of common words, of those ideas of which 
these peculiar terms are the single signs. 

Now, such an alteration would bring the language 
of divines nearly to the classical standard. If evan- 
gelical sentiments could be faithfully presented in 
an order of words of which so small a part should 
belong exclusively to those sentiments, they could 
be presented in what should be substantially the 
diction of Addison or Pope. And, if even Shaftes- 
bury, Bolingbroke, and Hume, could have become 
Christians by some mighty and sudden efficacy of 
conviction, and had determined to write thenceforth 
in the spirit of the Apostles, they would have found, 
if these observations are correct, no radical change 
necessary in the structure of their language. An 
enlightened believer in Christianity might have been 
sorry, if, in such a case, he had seen any of them 
superstitiously labouring to acquire all the phrases 
of a school, instead of applying at once to its new 
and its noblest use a diction fitted for the vehicle of 
universal thought. Are not they yet sufficient mas- 
ters of language, it might have been asked with sur- 
prise, to express all their thoughts with the utmost 
precision ? As their language had been found suffi- 
ciently specific to injure the gospel, it would have 
been strange if it had been too general to serve it. 
The required alteration would probably have been 
little more than to introduce familiarly the obvious 
denominations of the Christian topics and objects, 
such as, redemption, heaven. Mediator, Christ, Re^ 
deemer, with the others of a similar kind, and a very 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 217 

few of those almost technical words which I have 
admitted to be indispensable. The habitual use of 
such denominations would have left the general 
order of their composition the same. And it would 
have been striking to observe by how comparatively 
small a difference of terms a diction which had ap- 
peared most perfectly pagan, could be christianized, 
when the writer had turned to Christian subjects, 
and felt the Christian spirit. — On the whole, then, 
I conclude that, with the exception which 1 have 
distinctly made, the evangelical principles may be 
clearly exhibited in what may be called a neutral 
diction. And if they may, 1 can imagine some rea- 
sons to justify the wish that it had been more gen- 
erally employed. 

It will be permitted me to repeat, as one of these 
reasons, the consideration of the impression made 
by the style which 1 have described, on those per- 
sons of cultivated taste whom this essay has chiefly 
in view. I am aware that they are greatly inclined 
to make an idol of their taste ; and I am aware also 
that no species of irreligion can be much worse than 
to sacrifice to this idol any thing which essentially 
behmgs to Christianity. If any part of evangelical 
religion, separately from all injurious associations, 
were of a nature to displease a finished taste, the 
duty would evidently be to repress its claims and 
murmurs. We should dread the presumption which 
would require of the Deity, that his spiritual econo- 
my should be, both in fict and in a manner obvious 
to our view, subjected or correspondent in all parts 
to those laws of order and beauty, which we have 
learnt partly from the relations of the material world, 
and partly from the arbitrary institutions and habits 
of society. But, at the same time, it is a most unwise 
policy for religion, that the sacrifice of taste which 
ought, if required, to be submissively made to any 
part of either its essence or its form as really dis- 
played from heaven, should be exacted to any thing 
unnecessarily and ungracefully superinduced by- 
man. 

19 



218 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

As another reason, I would observe, that the dis- 
ciples of the religion of Christ would wish it to min- 
gle more extensively and familiarly with social con- 
verse, and all the serious subjects of human attention. 
But then it should have every facility, that would 
not compromise its genuine character, for doing so. 
And a peculiar |3hraseology is the direct contrary of 
such facility, as it gives to what is already by its 
own nature eminently distinguished from common 
subjects, an artificial strangeness, which makes it 
difficult for discourse to slide into it, and revert to it 
and from it, without a formal and ungraceful transi- 
tion. The subject is placed in a condition like that 
of an entire foreigner in company, who is debarred 
from taking any share in the conversation, till some 
one interrupts it by turning directly to him, and be- 
ginning to talk with him in the foreign language. 
You have sometimes observed, when a person has 
introduced religious topics, in the course of perhaps 
a tolerably rational conversation on other interesting 
subjects, that, owing to the cast of expression, fully 
as much as to the difference of the subject, it was 
done by an entire change of the whole tenour and 
bearings of the discourse, and with as formal an 
announcement as the bell ringing to church. Had 
his religious diction been more of a piece with the 
common train of sensible language, he might proba- 
bly have introduced the subject sooner, and certainly 
with a much better effect. 

A third consideration, is, that evangelical senti- 
ments would be less subject to the imputation of 
fanaticism, if their language were less contrasted 
with that of other classes of sentiments. Here it is 
unnecessary to say, th^t no pusillanimity were more 
contemptible than that which, to escape this impu- 
tation, would surrender the smallest vital particle of 
the religion of Christ. We are to keep in solemn 
recollection his declaration, ' Whosoever shall be 
ashamed of me and of my words, of him also shall 
the Son of Man be ashamed.' Any model of terms, 
which could not be superseded without precluding 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGIOW. 219 

some idea peculiar to the gospel from the possibility 
of being easily and most faithfully expressed, it 
would be for his disciples to retain, in spite of all the 
ridicule of the most antichristian age. But I am, at 
every step, supposing that every part of the evan- 

felical system can be most perfectly exhibited in a 
iction but little peculiar ; and, that being admitted, 
would it not be better to avert the imputation, as far 
as this difference of language could avert it ? Bet- 
ter, I do not mean, in the way of protective conve- 
nience to any cowardly feeling of the man who is 
liable to be called a fanatic for maintaining the 
evangelical principles ; he ought, on the ground 
both of Christian fidelity and of manly independence, 
to be superior to caring about the charge ; but bet- 
ter, as to the light in which these principles might 
appear to the persons who meet them with this preju- 
dice. You may have observed that in attributing 
fanaticism, they often fix on the phrases, at least as 
much as on the absolute substance, of evangelical 
doctrines. Noav would it not be better to show them 
what these doctrines are, as divested of these phrases, 
and exhibited clearly in that vehicle in which other 
important truths are presented ; and thus, at least, 
to obviate and disappoint their propensity to seize 
on a mode of exhibition so convertible to the ludi- 
crous, in defence against any claim to seriousness 
respecting the substantial matter ? If sometimes 
their grave attention, their corrected apprehension, 
their partial approbation, might be gained, it were a 
still more desirable eflTect. And we can recollect 
instances in which a certain degree of this good 
eflfect has resulted. Persons who had received un- 
favourable impressions of some of the peculiar ideas 
of the gospel, from having heard them advanced 
almost exclusively in the modes of phrase on which 
I have remarked, have acknowledged their prejudices 
to be diminished, after these ideas had been pre- 
sented in the simple, general language of intellect. 
We cannot, indeed, so far forget the lessons of ex- 
perience, and the inspired declarations concerning 



220 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

the dispositions of the human mind, as to expect that 
any improvement in the mode of exhibiting Christian 
truth %vill render it irresistible. But it were to be 
wished that every thing- should be done to bring 
reluctant minds into doubt, at least, whether, if they 
cannot be evangelical, it be because they are too 
sensible and refined. 

As a further consideration in favour of adopting a 
more general language, it may be observed, that 
hypocrisy would then "find a much greater difficulty, 
as far as speech is concerned, in supporting its im- 
posture. The usual language of hypocrisy, at least 
of vulgar hypocrisy, is cant ; and religious cant is 
often an affected use of the phrases which have been 
heard employed as appropriate to evangelical truth ; 
with which phrases the hypocrite has connected no 
distinct ideas, so that he would be confounded if a 
sensible examiner were to require an accurate ex- 
planation of them ; while yet nothing is more easy 
to be sung or said. Now, were this diction, for the 
greater part, to vanish from Christian society, leaving 
the truth in its mere essence behind, — and were, 
consequently, the pretender reduced to assume the 
guise of religion on the wide and laborious plan of 
acquiring an understanding of its leading principles, 
so as to be able to assign them discriminatively in 
language of his own, — the part of a hypocrite would 
be much less easily acted, and less frequently at- 
tempted. Religion would therefore be seldomer 
dishonoured by the mockery of a false semblance. 

Again — if this alteration of language were intro- 
duced, some of the sincere disciples of evangelical 
religion would much more distinctly feel the neces- 
sity of a positive intellectual hold on the principles 
of their profession. A systematic recurring formal- 
ity of words tends to prevent a perfect understanding 
of the subject, by furnishing for complex ideas a set 
of ready-framed signs, (like stereotype in printing,) 
which a man learns to employ without really having 
the combinations of thought of which those ideas 
consist. Some of the simple ideas which belong to 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 221 

the combination may be totally absent from his mind, 
— the others may be most faintly apprehended : there 
is no precise construction therefore of the thought; 
and thus the sign which he employs, stands in fact 
for nothing. If, on hearing one of these phrases, 
you were to turn to the speaker, and say. Now, what 
15 that idea? What do you plainly mean by that 
expression ? — you would often find with how indis- 
tinct a conception, with how little attention to the 
very idea itself, the mind had been contented. And 
this contentment you would often observe to be, not 
a humble acquiescence in a consciously defective 
apprehension of some principle of which a man feels 
and confesses the difficulty of attaining more than a 
partial conception, but the satisfied assurance that 
he fully understands what he is expressing. On 
another subject, where there were no settled forms 
of words to beguile him into the feeling as if he 
thought and understood when in fact he did not, and 
where words must have been selected to define his 
own apprehension of the thought, his embarrassment 
how to express himself would have made him con- 
scious of the indistinctness of his conception, and 
have compelled an intellectual effort. But it is 
against all justice, that Christian truth should be be- 
lieved and professed with a less concern for precision, 
and at the expense of less mental exercise, than any 
other subject would require. And of how little con- 
sequence it would seem to be, in this mode of be- 
lieving, whether a man entertains one system of 
principles, or the opposite. 

But if such arguments could not be alleged, it 
would still seem far from desirable, without evident 
necessity, to clothe evangelical sentiment in a dic- 
tion varying in more than a few indispensable terms 
from the general standard, for the simple reason, 
that it must be barbarous ; unless, as I have obsery- 
ed, it be raised quite above the authority of this 
standard, and of the criticism and the taste which 
appeal to it by the majesty of inspiration which we 
have no more to expect, or by the mighty intellectu- 



222 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

al action of a genius almost transcending- human 
nature. I do not know whether it is absolutely im- 
possible that there should arise a man whose manner 
of thinking shall be so incomparably original and 
sublime, as to authorize him to throw the language 
into a new order, all his own ; but it is questionable 
whether there ever appeared such a writer, in any 
language which had been cultivated to its maturity. 
Even Milton, who might, if ever mortal might, be 
warranted to sport with all established authorities, 
and to seize at will every unsanctioned mode of 
expression into which uncontrollable genius could 
stray, is, notwithstanding, for having presumed in a 
certain degree to create for himself a peculiar dic- 
tion, censured by Johnson as having written in a 
'Babylonish dialect.' And Johnson's own mighty 
force of mind has not saved his peculiar structure of 
language from being condemned by all men of taste. 
The magic of Burke's eloquence is not enough to 
preclude a perception of its being much less perfect 
than it might have been, had the same marvellous 
affluence of thought been expressed in a language 
of less arbitrary, capricious, and mannerish construc- 
tion. No more have the most distinguished evan- 
gelical divines, who have adhered to the spiritual 
dialect, impressed on it either a dignity to overawe 
literary taste, or a grace to conciliate it. Nor does 
it, with me, derive any sanction from being not the 
language of an individual only, but of a numerous 
and pious class ; nor from its long established use; 
nor yet from the pre-eminence of its subject, since 
I think that subject suffers in its dignity of appear- 
ance by being presented in this vehicle. 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 223 



LETTER IV. 

Answer to the Plea, iii hehalf of the Dialect in duestion, that it is formed from the 
Language of ihe Bible.. ..Description of the Mannar in which it is so formed..,. 
This W.iy of emp oyiwg biblical Language very ditferent from simple (Quotation 
....Grace and Uiility with which brief Forms of Words, whether Sentences or 
single Phrases, may be introduced from the Bibie, if they are brought in as pure 
Pieces and Pj.iticles of the Sacred Composition, set irt our own Composition as 
something distinct from it and foreign to it.. .But the biblical Phraseology in the 
Theolosrical Dialect, instead of thus appearing in distinct bright Points and Gems, 
is mo lifted and mixed up throughout the whole Consistence of the Diction, so as 
at once to lose iis own venerable Character, and to give a pervading Uncouth- 
ness without Dignity to the whole Composition... Let the Scripture Liinguage be 
quoted often, but not degraded into a barbarous compound Phraseology. ..Even 
if it were advisable to construct the Language of Theological Instruction in some 
kind of Resemblance to that of the Bible, it would not follow that it sliould be 
constrncte I in Imitation of the Phraseology of an antique Version.. ..License to 
Tery old Theologians to retain in a great Degree this peculiar Dialect. ...Young 
ones recommended (o learn to employ in Religion the Language in which culti- 
vated IVlen talk and write on general Sut)jects....The vast Mass of Writing in a 
comprehensive literary Sense bad, on the Subjects of Evangelical Theology, one 
great Cause of the Distaste felt by Men of intellectual Refinement. ...Several 
Kinds of this bad Writing specified....Wish for another Caliph Omar. 

In defence of the diction which I have been de- 
scribing-, it will be said, that it has grown out of the 
language of the Bible. To a jrreat extent this is 
evidently true. Many phrases, indeed, which casu- 
ally occurred in the writings of divines, and many 
which were laboriously invented by those who wish- 
ed to give to divinity a complete, systematic arrange- 
ment, and therefore wanted denominations or titles 
for the multitude of articles in the artificial distribu- 
tion, have been naturalized into the theological dia- 
lect. But a large proportion of its phrases consists 
partly in such combinations of words as were taken 
originally from the Bible, and still more in such as 
have been made in an intentional resemblance of 
the characteristic language of that book. 

Before I make any further remarks, I do not know 
whether it may be necessary, in order to prevent 
misapprehension, to advert to the high advantage 
and propriety of often introducing sentences from 
the Bible, — not only in theological, but in all grave, 



224 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

moral composition. Passages of the inspired writ- 
ings must necessarily be cited, in some instances, 
in proof of the truth of opinions, and may be most 
happily cited, in many others, to give a venerable 
and impressive air to serious sentiments which would 
be admitted without a formal reference to authority. 
Both complete sentences, and striking, short ex- 
pressions, consisting perhaps sometimes of only two 
or three words, may be thus introduced with an effect 
at once useful and ornamental, while they appear 
pure and unmodified amidst the composition, as 
simple particles of scripture, quite distinct from the 
diction of the writer who inserts them. When thus 
appearing in their own genuine quality, as lines or 
parts of lines taken from a venerable book which is 
written in a manner very different from our common 
mode of language, they continue to be of a piece with 
that book. They are read as expressions foreign to 
the surrounding composition, and, without an effort, 
referred to the work from which they are brought ; 
in the same manner as passages, or striking, short 
expressions, adopted from some respected and well- 
known classic in our language. Whatever dignity 
characterizes the great work itself, is possessed 
also by these detached pieces in the various places 
where they are inserted. And if they are judiciously 
inserted, they impart their dignity to the sentiments 
which they are employed to enforce. This employ- 
ment of the sacred expressions may be very frequent, 
as the Bible contains such an immense variety of 
ideas, applicable to all manner of interesting sub- 
jects. And from its being so familiarly known, its 
sentences or shorter expressions may be introduced 
without the formality of noticing, either by words or 
any other mark, from what volume they are drawn. 
— These observations are more than enough to ob- 
viole any imputations of wanting a due sense of the 
dignity and force which may be imparted by a judi- 
cious introduction of the languao-e of the Bible. 

It is a different mode of using biblical language, 
that constitutes so considerable a part of the dialect 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 225 

which T have ventured to disapprove. When inser- 
tions are made from the Bible in the manner here 
described as effective and ornamental, the composi- 
tion comprises two kinds of diction, each bearing its 
own separate charticter; the one being the diction 
which belongs to the author, the other that of the 
sacred book whence the citations are drawn. We 
pass along the course of his language with the ordi- 
nary feeling of being spoken to in a common, gen- 
eral phraseology ; and when we meet with the inr: 
sertions of direct scripture expression, they are 
recognised in their own peculiar character, as some- 
thing foreign to the author's diction, and with the 
sense that we are reading just so much of the Bible 
itself. This distinct recognition of the two separate 
characters of language prevents any impression of 
an uncouth, heterogeneous consistence. But in the 
theological dialect, that part of the phraseology 
which has a biblical cast, is neither the one of these 
two kinds of language nor the other, but an insep- 
arable mixture of both. For the expressions resem- 
bling those of scripture are blended and moulded 
into the very substance of the diction. I say resem- 
bling ; for though some of them are precisely phrases 
from the Bible, yet most of them are phrases a little 
modified from the form in which they occur in the 
sacred book, by changing or adding a word, by giving 
an artificial turn to the beg^inning or the end, or by 
compounding two phrases into one. There are also, 
as I have already observed, many forms of expression 
cast in imitation of the biblical, by taking some one 
word almost peculiar to the Bible, and connecting it 
with one, or with several, of the common words, in 
a very peculiar cons.trnction separately from which 
it is seldom introduced. Jn this manner the scrip- 
tural expressions, instead of appearing as shining 
points on a darker ground, as gems advantageously 
set in an inferior substance, are reduced to become 
a constituent part of the dialect, in which they lose 
their genuine quality and their lustre. They are not 
brought, in each single instance, directly from the 
20 



^^26 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

.scriptures by the distinct selection of the person 
who uses them, but merely recur to him in the com- 
mon usag^e of the diction, and generally without a 
recollection of their sacred origin. They are habit- 
ually employed by the school of divines, and therefore 
are now, in no degree, of the nature of quotations 
introduced for their special appositeness in particu- 
lar instances, as the expressions of a venerable hu- 
man author would be repeated. 

This is the kind of biblical phraseology which I 
could wish to see less employed, — unless it is either 
more venerable or more lucid than that which I have 
recommended. We may be allowed to doubt how 
far such a cast of lang-uag-e can be venerable, after 
considering-, that it gives not the smallest assurance 
of striking or elevated thought, since in fact a great 
quantity of most inferior writing has appeared in this 
kind of diction ; that it is not noiv actually learnt 
from familiarity with the scriptures ; that the inces- 
sant repetition of its phrases in every kind of reli- 
gious exercise and performance wears out any so- 
lemnity it might ever have had ; and that it is the 
very usual concomitant of a too systematic and 
cramped manner of thinking. It may be considered 
also, that phrases of whatever quality or high origin, 
if they do not stand separate in the composition, but 
are made essentially of apiece with the dialect, take, 
in point of dignity, the quality of that dialect, so that 
if the whole of it is not dignified, the particular part 
is not: if the whole character of the peculiar lan- 
guage of divines is not adapted to excite veneration, 
that proportion of it which has been formed out of 
the scripture phraseology is not adapted to excite it. 
And again, let it be considered, that in almost all 
cases, an attempt to imitate the peculiarity of form 
in which a venerable object is presented, instead of 
being content to aim at a coincidence of general 
qualities, not only fails to excite veneration, but 
excites the contrary sentiment; especially when all 
things in the form of the venerable model are homo- 
geneous, while the imitation exhibits some features 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 227 

of resemblance incongruously combined with what 
is mainly and unavoidably of a different cast. A 
grand, ancient edifice, of whatever order, or if it 
were of a construction peculiar to itself, would be 
an impressive object; but a modern little one raised 
in its neighbourhood, in a style of building substan- 
tially of the most vulgar kind, but with a number of 
antique windows and angles in imitation of the grand 
structure, would be a grotesque and ridiculous one. 

Scriptural phrases, then, can no longer make a 
solemn impression, when modified and vulgarized 
into the texture of a language which, taken all to- 
gether, is the reverse of every thing that can either 
attract or command. Such idioms may indeed re- 
mind one of prophets and apostles, but it is a recol- 
lection which prompts to say, Who are these men 
that, instead of seriously introducing at intervals the 
direct words of those revered dictators of truth, seem 
to be mockino- the sacred language by a barbarous, 
imitative diction of their own ? They may affect 
the forms of a divine solemnity, but there is no fire 
from heaven. They may show something like a 
burning bush, but it is without an angel. 

As to pei*spicuity, it will not be made a question 
whether that is one of the recommendations of this 
corrupt modification, of the biblical phraseology. 
Without our leave, the mode of expression habitu- 
ally associated with the general exercise of our 
intelligence, conveys ideas to us the most easily and 
the nwst clearly. And not unfrequently even in 
citing the pure expressions of scripture, especially 
in doctrinal subjects, a religious instructor will find 
it indispensable to add a sentence in order to expose 
the sense in a more obvious manner. 

If it should be feared that the use of a language 
in which the biblical phrases are not in this manner 
blended, might have a tendency to make the reader 
or hearer forget the Bible, or. recollect it only as an 
antiquated book, it may surely be assumed, that de- 
vout men, in illustrating religions subjects, will too 
often introduce the pure, unmodified expressions of 



228 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

that book to admit any clanger of its being fo'rgotten. 
And though these should occur much seldomer in 
the course of their sentences than the half-scriptural 
phrases are repeated in that diction on which 1 have 
remarked, they would probably remind us of the Bi- 
ble in a more advantageous manner, than a dialect 
which has lost the dignity of a sacred language 
without acquiring the grace of a classical one. I am 
sensible in how many points the illustration would 
not apply ; but it would partly answer my purpose to 
observe, that if it were wished to promote the study 
of some venerated human author, suppose Hooker, 
the way would not be to attempt incorporating a 
great number of his turns of expression into the 
essential structure of our own diction, w^hich would 
generally have a most uncouth effect, but to make 
respectful references, and often to insert in our 
composition sentences, and parts of sentences, dis- 
tinctly as his. 

Let the oracles of inspiration be cited continually, 
both as authority and illustration, in a manner that 
shall make the mind instantly refer each expression 
that is introduced to the venerable book from which 
it is taken ; but let our part of religious language be 
simply ours, and let those oracles retain their char- 
acteristic form of expression unjmitated, unparodied, 
to the end of time.* 

* In the above remarks, I have not made any distinction be- 
tween the sacred books in their own language, and as translated. 
It might not however be improper to notice, that though there is a 
great peculiarity of manner in the original scriptures, yet a certain 
small proportion of the phraseology which appears in the translated 
scriptures, does not belong to the essential structure of the original 
composition, but is to be ascribed to the state of the language at 
the time when the translation was made. A translation, there- 
fore, made now, and conformed to the present mature state of the 
language, in the same degree in which the earlier translation was 
conformed to the state of the language at that time, would make 
an alteration in some parts of that phraseology which the theolog- 
ical dialect has attempted to incorporate and imitate. If therefore 
it were the duty of divines to take the biblical mode of expressidn 
for their ino.de!, it would still be quite a work of supererogation 
to take this model in a wider degree cf difference from the ordi- 
nary language of serious thoughts than as it would appear in such 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 229 

An advocate for the theological diction, who should 
not maintain its necessity or utility on the ground 
that a considerable proportion of it has grown out of 
the language of scripture, may think it "has become 
necessary in consequence of so many people having 
been so long accustomed to it. I cannot but be 
aware that many respectable teachers of Christianity, 
both in speaking and writing, are so habituated to 
put their ideas in this cast of phraseology, that it 
would cost them a very great effort to make any 
material change. Nor could they acquire, if the 
change were attempted, a happy command of a more 
general language, without being intimately conver- 
sant with good writers on general subjects, and 
observant of their manner of composition. Unless, 
therefore, this study has been cultivated, or is in- 
tended to be cultivated, it will, perhaps, be better to 
adhere to the accustomed mode of expression with 

a later version. This would be a homage, not to the real diction 
of the sacred scriptures, but to the earlier cast of our own language. 
At the sauie time it must be admitted, both that the change of ex- 
pression which a later version might, on merely philological prin- 
ciples, be justified by the progress and present standard of our 
language for making, would not be great; and that every senti- 
ment of prudence and devotional taste forbids to make quite so 
much alteration as those principles might warrant. All who have 
!on2 venerated the scriptures in their somewhat antique version, 
would protest against their being laboriously modernized into 
every nice conformity with the present standard of the language, 
and against any other than a very literal translation. If it could 
be supposed that our language had not yet attained a fixed state, 
but that it would progressively change for ages to come, it would 
be desirable that the translation uf the Bible should always con- 
tinue, excejtt in what might essentially affect the sense, a century 
behind, for the sake of that venerable air which a degree of anti- 
quity confers on the fornr of that which is in its substance so 
eminently sacred. But 1 cannot allow that the same law is to be 
extended to the language of divines. They have no right to' as- 
sume the same ground and the same distinctions as the Bible; 
they ought not to affect to keep it company. There is no solemn 
dignity in their writings, which can claim to he invested with a 
venerable peculiarity. Imitate the Bible or not, their composition 
is merely of the ordinary human quality, and subject to the same 
rules as that of their contemporaries who write on other subjects. 
And if they remain behind the advanced state of the classical 
diction, those contemporaries will not allow them to excuse them- 
selves by pretending to identify themselves with the Bible. 



230 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TA^TE 

all disadvantages. Younger theological students, 
howcjver, are supposed to be introduced to those 
authors who have displayed the utmost extent and 
powers of language in its freest form ; and it may 
not be amiss for them to be told that evangelical 
ideas would incur no necessary corruption or profana- 
tion by being conveyed in so liberal and lucid a dic- 
tion. — With regard also to a considerable proportion 
of Christian readers and hearers, I am sensible that 
a reformed language would be excessively strange 
to them. But may I not allege, without any affecta- 
tion of paradox, that its being so strange to theni 
would be a proof of the necessity of adopting it, at 
least in. part, and by degrees ? For the manner in 
whiich some of them would receive this altered dia- 
lect, would prove that the customary phraseology 
had scarcely given them any clear ideas. It would 
be found, as I have observed before, that the peculiar 
phrases had been, not so much the vehicles of ideas, 
as the substitutes for them. These hearers and 
readers have been accustomed to chime to the sound 
without apprehending the sense ; insomuch that if 
they hear the very ideas which these phrases signify, 
or did signify, expressed ever so simply in other 
language, they do not recognise them ; and are in- 
stantly on the alert with the epithets, sound, ortho- 
dox, and all the watch-words of ecclesiastical suspi- 
cion. For such Christians, the diction is the conve- 
nient asylum of ignorance, indolence, and prejudice. 
But I have enlarged far beyond m}^ intention, 
which was only to represent, with a short illustration, 
that this peculiarity is unfavourable to a cordial 
reception of evangelical doctrines in minds of culti- 
vated taste. This 1 know to be a fact from many 
observations in real life, especially among intellect- 
ual young persons, not altogether averse to serious 
subjects, nor inclined to listen to the cavils against 
the divine authority of Christianity itself. 

After dismissing the consideration of the peculiar 
diction of divines, I meant to have taken a somewhat 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. • 231 

more general view of the accumulation of bad writ- 
ing, under which the evangelical theology has been 
buried ; and which has contributed to render its 
principles less welcome to persons of accomplished 
mental habits. A large proportion of that writing 
may be called bad, on nwre accounts than merely 
the theological peculiarity of dialect. But it is an 
invidious topic, and I shall make only a few obser- 
vations. 

Evidences of an intellect superior in some degree 
to the common level, with a literary execution disci- 
plined to great correctness, and partaking somewhat 
of elegance, are requisite on the lowest terms ot 
acceptance for good writing, with cultivated readers ; 
excepting indeed that one requisite alone in a pre- 
eminent degree, superlatively strong sense, will 
command attention, and even admiration, in the ab- 
sence of all the graces, and notwithstanding much 
incorrectness in the workmanship of the composition. 
Below this pitch of single or of combined quality, a 
book cannot, as a literary performance, please, 
though its subject be the most interestinsr on earth ; 
and for acceptableness, therefore, the subject is un- 
fortunate in coming to those persons in that book. 
A disgusting cup will spoil the finest element which 
can be conveyed in it, though that were the nectar 
of immortality. 

Now, in this view, I suppose it will be acknowl- ' 
edged that the evangelical cause has not, on the 
wHoie, been happy in its prodigious list of authors. 
A number of them have displayed a high order of 
excellence ; but one regrets as to a much greater 
number, that they did not revere the dignity of their 
religion too much to beset and suffocate it with their 
superfluous offerings. To you f do not need to 
expatiate on the character of the collective Christian 
library. It will have been obvious to you that a 
great many books form the perfect vulgar of pious 
authorship ; an assemblage of the most subordinate 
materials that can be called thought, in language 
too grovelling to be called style. Some ofthese 



232 OJN THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

writers seem to have concluded that the greatness 
of the subject was to do every thing, and that they 
had but to pronounce, like David, the name of 'the 
Lord of Hosts,' to give pebbles the force of darts 
and spears. Others appear to have really v,ranted 
the perception of any gre.at difference, in point of 
excellence, between the meaner and the nobler 
modes of writing. If they had read alternately Bar- 
row's pages and their own, they probably would 
have been hardly sensible of the superiority of his. 
A number of them, citing, in a perverted sense, the 
language of St. Paul, ' not with excellency of speech.' 
'not with enticing words of man's wisdom,' 'not in 
the Avords which man's wisdom teacheth,' expressly 
disclaim every thing that belongs to fine writing, 
not exactly as what they could not have exhibited , 
or attained, but as what they judge incompatible 
with the simplicity of evangelical truth and inten- 
tions. In the books of each of these classes you are 
mortified to see how low religious thought and ex- 
pression can sink ; and you almost wonder how it 
was possible for the noblest ideas that are known to 
the sublimest intelligences, the ideas of God, of prov- 
idence, of redemption, of eternity, to come into a 
serious human mind without imparting some small 
occasional degree of dignity to the train of thought. 
The indulgent feelings, which you entertain for the 
intellectual and literary deficiency of humble Chris- 
tians in their religious communications in private, 
are with difficulty extended to those who make for 
their thoughts this demand on public attention : it 
was necessary for them to be Christians, but what 
made it their duty to become authors ? Many of the 
books are indeed successively ceasing, with the 
progress of time, to. be read or known ; but the new 
supply continually brought forth is so numerous, 
that a person who turns his attention to religious 
reading is certain to meet a variety of them. Now 
only suppose a man who has been conversant and 
enchanted with the works of eloquence, refined taste, 
or strong reasoning, to meet a number of these books 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 233 



light would the religion of Christ appear to him, if 
he did not find some happier delineations of it? 

There is another large class of Christian books, 
■which bear the marks of learning, correctness, and 
a disciplined understanding ; and by a general pro- 
priety leave but little to oe censured ; but which 
display no invention,. no prominence of thought, nor 
living vigour of expression : all is flat and dry as a 
plain of sand. It is perhaps the thousandth iteration 
of common-places, the listless attention to which is 
hardly an action of the mind : you seem to under- 
stand it all, and mechanically assent while you are 
thinking of something else. Though the author has 
a rich, immeasurable field of possible varieties of 
reflection and illustration around him, he seems 
doomed to tread over again the narrow space of 
ground long since trodden to dust, and in all his 
movements appears clothed in sheets of lead. 

There is a smaller class that might be called mock- 
eloquent writers. These saw the effect of brilliant 
expression in those works of eloquence and poetry 
where it was dictated and animated by energy of 
thought, and very reasonably wished "that Christian 
sentiments might assume a language as impressive 
as any subject had ever employed to fascinate or 
command. But unfortunately, they forgot that elo- 
quence resides essentially in the thought, and that 
no words can make that eloquent, which will not be 
so in the plainest that could fully express the sense. 
Or, probably, they were quite confident of the ex- 
cellence of "their thoughts. Perhaps they concluded 
them to be vigorous and sublime from the very cir- 
cumstance that they refused to be- expressed in plain 
language. The writers would be but little inclined 
to suspect of poverty or feebleness the thoughts 
which seemed so naturally to be assuming, in their 
minds and on their page, such a magnificent style. 
A gaudy verbosity is always eloquence in the opin- 
ion of him that writes it; but what is the effect on 
the reader ? Real eloquence strikes on your mind 



234 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

with irresistible force, and leaves you not the possi- 
bility of askinjr or thinking whether it be eloquence ; 
but the sounding sentences of these writers leave 
you cool enough to examine with doubtful curiosity 
a language that seems threatening to move or aston- 
ish you, without actually doing it. It is something 
like the case of a falsfe alarm of thunder ; where a 
sober man, that is not apt to startle at sounds, looks 
out to see whether it be not the rumbling of a cart. 
Very much at your ease, you contrast the pomp of 
the expression with the quality of the thoughts ; and 
then read on for amusement, or cease to read from 
disgust. In a serious hour, indeed, the feeling of 
being amused, is prevented by the regret, that it 
should be possible for an ill-judged style of writing 
to bring the most important subjects in danger of 
something worse than failing to interest. The un- 
pleasing effect which it has on your own mind will 
lead you to apprehend its having a very injurious 
one on many others. 

A principal device in the fabrication of this style, 
is, to multiply epithets, dry epithets, laid on the out- 
side, and into which none of the vitality of the sen- 
timent IS found to circulate. You may take a great 
number of the words out of each page, and find that 
the sense is neither more nor less for your having 
cleared the composition of these epithets of chalk of 
various colours, with which the tame thoughts had 
submitted to be dappled and made fine. 

Under the denomination of mock-eloquence may 
also be placed the mode of writing which endeavours 
to excite the passions, not by presenting striking 
ideas of the object of passion, but by the appearance 
of an emphatical enunciation of the writer's own 
feelings concerning it. You are not made to per- 
ceive how the thing itself has the most interesting 
claims on your heart; but you are required to be 
affected in mere sympathy with the author, who at- 
tempts your feelings by fVequent exclamations, and 
perhaps by an incessant application to his fellow- 
mortals, or to their Redeemer, of all the appellations 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 235 

and epithets of passion, and sometimes of a kind of 
passion not appropriate to the object. To this last 
great Object, especially, such forms of expression 
are occasionally applied, as must revolt a man who 
feels that he cannot meet the same being- at once on 
terms of adoration and of caressing equality. 

It would be going beyond my purpose, to carry 
my remarks from the literary merits, to the moral 
and theological characteristics, of Christian books ; 
else a very strange account could be given of the 
injuries which the gospel has suffered from its 
friends. You might often meet with a systematic' 
writer, in whose hands the whole wealth, and variety, 
and magnificence of revelation, shrink into a meagre 
list of doctrinal points, and who will let no verse in 
the Bible say a syllable till it has placed itself under 
one of them. You may meet with a Christian po- 
lemic, who seems to value the arguments for evan- 
gelical truth as an assassin values his dagger, and 
for the same reason ; with a descanter on the invis- 
ible world, who makes you think of a popish cathe- 
dral, and from the vulgarity of whose illuminations 
you are excessively glad to escape into the solemn 
twilight of faith ; or with a grim zealot for a theory 
of the divine attributes, which seems to delight in 
representing the Deity as a dreadful king of furies, 
whose dominion is overshaded with vengeance, 
whose music is the cries of victims, and whose glory 
requires to be illustrated by the ruin of his creation. 

It is quite unnecessary to say, that the list of ex- 
cellent Christian writers would be very considerable. 
But as to the vast mass of books that would, by the 
consenting adjudgment of all men of liberal cultiva- 
tion, remain after this deduction, one cannot help 
deploring the effect which they must have had on 
unknown thousands of readers. It would seem be- 
yond all question that books which, though even 
asserting the essenti;il truths of Christianity, yet 
utterly preclude the full impression of its character; 
which exhibit its claims on admiration and affection 
with insipid feebleness of sentiment : or which cramp 



236 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

its simple majesty into an artificial form at once dis- 
torted and mean-; must be seriously prejudicial to 
the influence of this sacred subject, thoug-h it be 
admitted that many of them have sometimes imparted 
a measure of instruction and a measure of consola- 
tion. This they might do, and yet convey very con- 
tracted and inadequate ideas of. the subject at the 
same time.* There are a ^reat many of them into 
which an intelligent Christian cannot look without 
rejoicing- that they were not the books from which 
he received his impressions of the glory of his reli- 
gion. There are many which nothing would induce 
him, even though he do not materially differ from 
them in the leading articles of his^belief, to put into 
the hands of an inquiring young p'erson ; which he 
would be sorry and ashamed to see on the table of 
an infidel ; and some of which he regrets to think 
may still contribute to keep down the standard of 
reliffious taste, if I may so express it, among the 
public instructors of mankind. On the whole, it 
would appear, that a profound veneration for Chris- 
tianity would induce the wish, that, after a judicious 
selection of books had been made, the Christians 
also had their Caliph Omar, and their General Amrou. 

* It is true enough that on every other subject, on which a mul- 
titude of books have been written, there must have been many 
whicji in a literary sense were bad. But I cannot help thinking 
that the number coming under this description, bear a larger pro- 
portion to the excellent ones in the religious department tlian in 
any other. One chief cause of this has been, the mistake by 
which many good men professionally employed in religion, have 
deemed their respectable mental competence to the office of public 
speaking, the proof of an equal competence to a work, which is 
subjected to much severer literary and intellectual laws. 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 237 



LETTER V. 

A grand Cause of the Displacency encountered by Evangelical Religion among- 
Men of Tiste is, that the great School in which that Taste is formed, that of 
Polite Literature, talien in 'the widest Sense of the Phrase, is hostile to thai Reli- 
gion....Modern Literature intended principally to be animadverted on.. .Brief 
Notice of the ancient. ...Heathen Theolog-y, Metaphysics, and Morality.... Harm- 
lessiiess of the two former ; Deceptiveness of the last.. ..But tlie chief Influence 
is from so much of the History as may he called Biography, and from the Poeiry 
....Homer. ..Manner in which the Interest he excites is hostile to the Spirit of the 
Christian Religion.... Virgil. 

The causes which I have thus far considered, are 
associated immediately with the ohjed, and, by mis- 
representing it, render it less acceptable to refined 
taste ; but there are other causes, which operate by 
perverting the very principles of this taste itself, so 
as to make it dislike the religion of Christ, even 
though presented in its own full and genuine char- 
acter, cleared of all these associations. I shall re- 
mark chiefly on one of these causes. 

I fear it is incontrovertible, that far the greatest 
part of what is- termed Polite Literatare, by famil- 
iarity with which taste is refined, and the moral sen- 
timents are in a great measure formed, is hostile to 
the religion of Christ; partly, by introducing ijisen- 
sibly a certain order of opinions unconsonant, or at 
least not identical, with the principles of that reli- 
gion; and still more, by training the feelings to a 
nabit alien from its spirit. And in this assertion, I 
do not refer to writers palpably irreligious, who have 
laboured and intended to seduce the passions into 
vice, or the 'judgment into the rejection of divine 
truth ; but to the general assemblage of those ele- 
gant and ingenious authors who are read and admired 
by the Christian world, held essential to a liberal 
education and to the proo-ressive accomplishment of 
the mind in subsequent life, and studied often with- 
out an apprehension, or even a thought, of their 



238 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

injuring the views and temper of spirits advancing", 
with the New Testament for their chief instructer 
and guide, into another world. 

It is modern literature that I have more particu- 
larly in view ; at the same time, it is obvious that 
the writings of heathen antiquity have continued to 
operate till now with Iheir own proper influence, 
that is, a correctly heathenish influence, in the very 
sight and presence of Christianity, on the minds of 
many who have admitted the truth of that religion. 
This is jnst as if an eloquent pagan priest had been 
allowed constantly to accompany our Lord in his 
ministry, and had divided with him the attention and 
interest of his disciples, counteracting, of course, as 
far as.his eflTorts were successful, the doctrine and 
spirit of the Teacher from heaven.* 

The few observations w'hich the subject may re- 
quire to be made on ancient literature, will be di- 
rected chiefly to one part of it. For it will be 
allowed, that the purely speculative part of that 
literature has in a great measure ceased to interfere 
with the intellectual discipline of modern times. It 
obtains too little attention, and too little deference, 
to contribute much toward fixing the mind in those 
habits of thought and feeling which prevent the 

* It is, however, no part of my object in these letters to remark 
on the influence, in modern times, of tlie fabulous deities that 
infeste9 the ancient works of genius. That influence is at the 
present time, I should think, extremely small, from the fables 
beinc so stale: all readers are sufficiently tired of Jupiter, Apollo, 
Minerva, and the rest So. Ions, however, as they could be of 
the smallest service, they were piously retained by the Christian 
poets of this and other countries, who are now under the neces- 
sity of seeking out for some other mytholosry, the northern or the 
eastern, to support the languishing spirit of poetry. Rven the 
ugly pieces of wood, worshipped in the Soiith t->a islands, will 
prohnbly at last receive names that may more com'modioush' hitch 
into verse, and be invoked to adorn and sanctify the belles leftres 
of the next century. The poet has no reas(m to fear that the 
supply of ffods may-fail ; it is, at the same time, a pity, one thinks, 
that a creature so immense should have been placed in a world 
so small as this, where all nature, all history, all morals, all true 
relijrion, and the whole resources of innocent fiction, are too little 
Ip furnish materials enough for the wants and labours of his genius. 



/ 

TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 239 

cordial admission of the doctrines and spirit of the 
gospel. Several learned and fanatical devotees to 
antiquity and pao^anism, have indeed made some 
effort to recall the long departed veneration for the 
dreams and subtleties of ancient philosophy. But 
they might, with perhaps a better prospect for suc- 
cess, recommend the building of temples or a pan- 
theon, and the revival of all the institutions of idola- 
trous worship. The greater number of intelligent, 
and even learned men, would feel but little regret 
in consigning (if it could be consigned.) the much 
larger proportion of thnt philosophy to oblivion ; ex- 
cept they may be supposed to love it as heathenism 
more than they admire it as wisdom ; or unless their 
pride would wish to retain it as a contrast to their 
own more rational theories. 

The ancient speculations on religion include, in- 
deed, some very noble ideas relating to a Supreme 
Being ; but these ideas do not produce, in an intel- 
ligent man, any degree of partiality for that immense 
system, or rather chaos, of fantastic folly by which 
they f^re environed. He separates them from that 
chaos as somethin/r not strictly belonging to hea- 
thenism, nor forming a part of it. He considers 
most of them as the traditionary remains of divine 
communications to mm in. the earliest ages. A few 
of them were, perhaps, the utmost efforts of human 
intellect, at some happy moments excelling itself. 
But whether they are referred to the one origin or 
the other, they stand so conspicuously above the 
general assemblage of the pasfan speculations ori 
the subject of Deity, that they throw a solemn con- 
tempt on those speculations. They throw contempt 
on the greatest part of the theological doctrine of 
even the very philosophers that expressed them. 
They rather seem to direct our contemplation and 
affection toward a relig-ion divinely revealed, than 
to obtain any de'gree of favour for those notions of a 
God, which spruno- and indefinitely multiplied from 
a melancholy combination of ignorance and deprav- 
ed imagination. As to the apparent analogy between 



240 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

some of the notions of pa^an religion, and one or 
two of tlie most specific articles of Christianity, those 
notions are presented in such fantastic, and varying, 
and often monstrous, shapes, that the analogy is not 
close and constant enough to pervert our conception, 
or to preclude our admission^ of the defined proposi- 
tions of the evangelic faith. 

The next part of the pure speculations of the an- 
cients, is, their metaphysics. And whatever may be 
the effect of metaphysical study in general, or of the 
particular systems of modern philosophers, with re- 
gard to the cordial and simple admission of Christian 
doctrines, the ancient metaphysics may certainly be 
pronounced harmless, from holding so little connex- 
ion with modern opinions. Later philosophers, by 
means of a far better method of inquiry, have opened 
quite a new order of metaphysical views ; and per- 
sons with but a very small share of the acnteness 
and ingenuity of those ancient framers of ideal sys- 
tems, can now wonder at their being so fantastic. 
The only attraction of abstract speculations is in 
their truth ; and therefore when the persuasion of 
their truth is gone, all their influence is extinct. 
That which could please the imagination or interest 
the affections, might in a considerable degree con- 
tinuexto please and interest them, though convicted 
of fallacjr. But that which is too subtle to please the 
imagination, loses all its power when it is rejected 
by the judgment. And this is the predicament to 
which time has reduced the metaphysics of the old 
philosophers. The captivation of their systems seems 
almost as far withdrawn from us as the songs of their 
Syrens, or the enchantments of Medea. 

The didactic morality of the heathen philosophers 
comes much nearer to our interests, and has proba- 
bly continued to have a considerable influence on 
the sentiments of cultivated men. After being de- 
tained a great while among the phantoms and the 
monsters of mythology, or following through the 
mazes of ancient metaphysics that truth which occar. 
pionally appears for q mppient, but still foreyer re^. 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 241 

tires before the pursuer, the student of antiquity is 
delighted to meet with a sage who comes to him in 
a character of reality, with the warm, living eloquence 
of a doctrine which speaks to him in direct instruc- 
tion concerning duty and happiness. And since it 
is necessarily the substantial object of tbis instruc- 
tion to enforce goodness, he feels but little cause to 
guard against any perversion of his principles. He 
entirely forgets that goodness has been defined and 
enforced by another authority ; and that though its 
main substance, as matter of practice, must be much 
the same in the dictates of that authority, and in the 
writings of Epictetus, or Cicero, or Antoninus, yet 
there is a material difference in some parts of the 
detail, and a most important one in the principles 
that constitute the basis. While he is admiring the 
beauty of virtue as displayed by one accomplished 
moralist, and its lofty independent spirit as exhibited 
by another, he is not inclined to suspect that any 
thing in their sentiments, or liis animated participa- 
tion of them, can be wrong. 

But the part of ancientliterature which has had 
incomparably the greatest influence on the character 
of cultivated minds, is that which has turned, if I 
may so express it, moral sentiments into real beings 
and interestinnf companions, by displaying the life 
and actions of eminent individuals. A few of the 
personao-es of fiction are also to be included. The 
captivatinsT spirit of Greece and Rome resides in the 
works of the biographers ; in so much of the history 
as might properly be called biography, from its fixing 
the whole attention and interest on a few signal 
names ; and in the works of the principal po'^ts. 

No one. I suppose, will deny, that both the char- 
acters and the sentiments, vvhich are the favourites 
of the poet and the historian, become the fiu'ourites 
also of the admiring reader; for this would he to 
deny the oxcellpnce of tho poetry and eloquence. 
It is the hig-h test and proof of arenius that a writer 
can render his subject interesting to his readers, not 
merely in a general way, but in the venjsame manner 



242 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

in which it interests himself. If the great works of 
antiquity had not this power, they would long since 
have ceased to charm. We could not long tolerate 
what revolted, while it was designed to please, our 
moral feelings. But if their characters and senti- 
ments really do thus fascinate the heart, how far will 
this influence be coincident with the spirit and with 
the design of Christianity ?* 

Among the poets, I shall notice only the two or 
three pre-eminent ones of the Epic class. Homer, 
you Imow, is the favourite of the whole civilized 
world ; and it is many centuries since there needed 
one additional word of homage to the amazing gen- 
ius displayed in the Iliad. The object of inquiry is, 
what kind of predisposition will be formed toward 
Christianity in a young and animated spirit, that 
learns to glow with enthusiasm at the scenes created 
by Homer, and to indulge an ardent wish, which that 
enthusiasm will probably awaken, for the possibility 
of emulating some of the principal characters. Let 
this susceptible youth, after having mingled and 
burned in imagination among heroes, whose valour 
and anger flame like Vesuvius, who wade in blood, 
trample on dying foes, and hurl defiance against 
earth and heaven ; let him be led into the company 
of Jesus Christ and his disciples, as displayed by the 
evangelists, with whose narrative, I will suppose, he 
is but slightly acquainted before. What must he, 
what can he, do with his feelings in this transition ? 
He will find himself flung as far as 'from the centre 
to the utmost pole ;' and one of these two opposite 
exhibitions of character will inevitably excite his 
aversion. Which of them is that likely to he, if he 
is become thoroughly possessed with the Homeric 
passions ? 

* It may be noticed here, that a great part of what could be 
said on heathen literature as opposed to the religion of Christ, must 
necessarily refer to the peculiar moral spirit of that religion. Tt 
would border on the ridiculous to represent the martial enthusiasm 
of ancient historians and poets as counteracting the peculiar doc- 
trines of the gospel, meaning by the term those dictates of truth 
that do not directly involve moral precepts. 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 243 

Or if, on the other hand, you will suppose a person 
to have first become profoundly interested by the 
New Testament, and to have acquired the spirit of 
the Saviour of the world, while studying the evan- 
gelical history ; with what sentiments will he come 
forth from conversing- with heavenly mildness, weep- 
ing benevolence, sacred purity, and the eloquence 
of divine wisdom, to enter into a scene of such ac- 
tions and characters, and to hear such maxims of 
merit and glory, as those of Homer ? He would be 
still more confounded by the transition, had it been 
possible for him to have entirely escaped that deep 
depravation of feeling which can" think of crimes and 
miseries with little emotion, and which we have all 
acquired from viewing the whole history of the world 
composed of scarcely any thing else. He would 
find the mightiest strain of poetry employed to rep- 
resent ferocious courage as the greatest of virtues, 
and those who do not possess it "as worthy of their 
fate, to be trodden in the dust. He will be taught, 
at least it will not be the fault of the poet if he is 
not taught, to forgive a heroic spirit for finding the 
sweetest luxury in insulting dying pangs, and imag- 
ining the tears and despair of distant relatives. He 
will be incessantly called upon to worship revenge, 
the real divinity of the Iliad, in comparison of which 
the Thunderer of Olympus is but a despicable pre- 
tender to power. He will be taught that the most 
glorious and enviable life is that, to which the great- 
est number of other lives are made a sacrifice ; and 
that it is noble in a hero to prefer even a short life 
attended by this felicity, to a long one which should 
permit a longer life also to others. The dire Achil- 
les, a being whom, if he really existed, it had de- 
served a conspiracy of the tribes .then called nations 
to chain or to suffocate, is rendered interesting even 
amidst the horrors of revenge and destruction, 'by 
the intensity of his affection for his friend, by the 
melancholy with which he appears in the funeral 
scene of that friend, by one momentary instance of 
compassion, and by his solemn references, to his qwn 



244 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

approaching death. A reader, who has even passed 
beyond the juvenile ardour of life, feels himself in- 
terested, in a manner that excites at intervals his 
own surprise, in the fate of this stern destroyer; and 
he wonders, and he wishes to doubt, whether the 
moral that he is learning be, after all, exactly no 
other than that the grandest employment of a great 
spirit is the destruction of human creatures, so long 
as revenge, ambition, or even caprice, may choose 
to regard them under an artificial distinction, and 
call them enemies. But this, my dear friend, is the 
real and effective moral of the Iliad, after all that 
critics have so gravely written about lessons of union, 
or any other subordinate moral instructions, which 
they discover or imagine in the work. Who but 
critics ever thought or cared about these instruc- 
tions ? Whatever is the chief and grand impression 
made by the whole work on the ardent minds which 
are most susceptible of the influence of poetry, that 
is the real moral ; and Alexander, and, by reflection 
from him, Charles XII. correctly received the gen- 
uine inspiration. 

W it be said that such works stand on the same 
ground, except as to the reality or accuracy of the 
facts, with an eloquent history, which simply exhibits 
the actions and characters, I deny the assertion. 
The actions and characters are presented in a man- 
ner which prevents their just impression, and em- 
powers them to make an opposite one. A trans- 
forming magic of genius displays a number of atro- 
cious savages in a hideous slaughter-house of men, 
as demigods in a temple of glory. No doubt an 
eloquent history might be so written as to give the 
same aspect to such men, and such operations ; but 
that history would deserve to be committed to the 
flames. A history that should present a perfect 
display of human miseries and slaughter, would in- 
cite no one, that had not attained the last possibility 
of depravation, to imitate the principal actors. It 
would give the same feeling as the sight of a field 
©f dead and dying men after a battle is'over; a sight 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 



245 



lit which the soul -would shudder, and earnestly wish 
that this might be the last lime the son should be- 
fiold such a spectacle : but the tendency of the 
Homeric poetry, and of a great part of epic poetry 
in general, is to insinuate the glory of repeating 
such a tragedy. I therefore ask again, how it would 
be possible for a man, whose mind was first com- 
pletely -assimilated to the spirit of Jesus Christ, to 
read such a work without a most vivid antipathy to 
what he perceived to be the moral spirit of the poet? 
And if it were not too strange a supposition, that the , 
most characteristic parts of the Iliad had been read " 
in the presence and hearing of our Lord, and by a 
person animated by a fervid sympathy with the work 
— do you not instantly imagine Him expressing the 
most emphatical condemnation? Would not the 
reader have been made to know, that iii the spirit of 
that book he could never become a disciple and a 
friend of the Messiah ? But then, if he believed this 
declaration, and were serious enough to care about 
iaeingthe discipla and friend of the" Messiah, would 
he not have deemed himself extremely unfortunate 
to have been seduced, through the pleasures of taste 
and imagination, into habits of feeling which ren- 
dered it impossible, till they could be destroyed, for 
him to receive the qnly true religion, and the only 
Redeemer of the world ? To show hoiv impossible 
it would be, I wish I may be pardoned for making 
another strange and indeed a most monstrous sup- 
position, namely, that Achilles, Diomede, Ulysses, 
and Ajax had been real persons, living in the time 
of our Lord, and had become his disciples and yet 
(excepting the mere exchange of the notions of nay- 
thology for Christian opinions,) had retained entire 
the state of mind with which their poet has exhibited 
them. It is instantly perceived that Satan, Beelze- 
bub, and Moloch might as consistently have been 
retained in heaven. But here the question comes 
to a point: if these great examples of glorious char- 
acter, pretending to coalesce with the transcendent 
Sovereign of virtues, would have been probably the 



246 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

most enormous incongruity existing, or that ever 
had existed, in the whole universe, what harmony 
can there be between a man who has acquired 
a considerable deg-ree of congeniality with the 
spirit of these heroes, and that paramount Teacher 
and Pattern of excellence ? And who will assure 
me that the enthusiast for heroic poetry does not 
acquire a degree of this congeniality ? But unless' 
I can be so assured, I necessarily persist in asserting 
the noxiousness of such poetry. 

Yet the work of Homer is, notwithstanding, the 
book which Christian poets have translated, which 
Christian divines have edited and commented on 
with pride, at which Christian ladies have been de- 
lighted to see their sons kindle into rapture, and 
which forms an essential part of the course of a lib- 
eral education, over all those countries on which the 
gospel shines. And who can tell how much that 
passion for war which, from the universality of its 
prevalence, might seem inseparable from the nature 
of man, may, in the civilized world, have been rein- 
forced by the enthusiastic admiration with which 
young men have read Homer, and similar poets, 
whose genius transforms what is, and ought always 
to appear, purely horrid, into an aspect of grandeur? 

Should it be asked,- And what ought to be the 
practical consequence of such observations ? I may 
surely answer that 1 cannot justly be required to 
assign that consequence. I cannot Joe required to 
do more than exhibit in a simple light an important 
point of truth, i/" such works do really impart their 
own genuine spirit to the mind of an admiring read- 
er, in proportion to the degree in which he admires, 
pndf/" this spirit is totally hostile to that of Chris- 
tianity, and if Christianity ought really and in good 
faith to be the supreme regent of all moral feeling, 
then it is evident that the Iliad, and all the books 
which combine the same tendency with great poet- 
ical excellence, are among the most mischievous 
things on earth. There is but little satisfaction, 
certainly, in illustrating the operation of evils without 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 247 

proposing any adequate method of contending with 
them. But, in the present case, I really do not see 
■what a serious observer of the character of mankind 
can offer. To wish that the works of Homer, and 
some other great authors of antiquity, should cease 
to be read, is just as vain as to wish they had never 
been written. As to the far greater number of 
readers, it were equally in vain to wish that pure 
Christian sentiments might be sufficiently recollect- 
ed, and loved, to accompany the study, and constant- 
ly prevent the injurious impression of the works of 
pagan genius. The few maxims of Christianity to 
which the student m.ay have assented without thought 
and for which he has but little veneration, will but 
feebly oppose the influence ; the spirit of Homer 
will vanquish as irresistibly as his Achilles van- 
quished. It is also most perfectly true, that so long 
as pride, ambition, and vindictiveness hold so mighty 
a prevalence in the character and in the nature of 
our species, they would still amply display them- 
selves, though the stimulus, of heroic poetry were 
withdrawn by the annihilation of all those works 
which hav-e invested the worst passions, and the 
worst actions, with a glare of grandeur. With or 
without classical ideas, men and nations will continue 
to commit offences against one another, and to 
avenge them; to assume an arrogant precedence, 
and account it noble spirit ; to celebrate their deeds 
of destruction, and call them glory ; to idolize the 
men who possess, and can infuse, the greatest share 
of an infernal fire ; to set at nought all principles of 
virtue and religion in favour of a thoughtless, vicious 
mortal w^ho consigns himself in the same achieve- 
ment to fame and perdition ; to vaunt in triumphal 
entries, or funeral pomps, or strings of scalps, how 
far human skill and valour can excel the powers of 
famine and pestilence : men and nations will con- 
tinue thus to act, till some new dispensation of Hea- 
ven shall establish the reign of Christianity. In that 
better season, perhaps the great works of ancient 
genius will be read with such a state of mind 



248 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE^ 

SLS can receive the intellectual improvement deriv- 
able from them, and at the same time as little co- 
incide or be infected with their moral spirit, as. 
in the present ag^e we venerate their mythological 
vanities. 

In the mean time,, one cannot believe that any 
man who seriously reffects how absolutely the reli- 
gion of Christ claims a conformity of his whole na- 
ture^ will without regret feel himself animated, even 
for a moment, with a class of sentiments of which 
the habitual prevalence would be the total preclusion 
of Christianity. And it seems to show how little 
this religion is really understood, or even considered^ 
in any of the coHntries denominated Christian, that 
so many who profess to adopt it never once thought 
of guarding their own minds, and those of their chil- 
dren^ against the eloquent seductions of a spirit 
which is mortally opposite. Probably thejr would 
be more intelligent and vigilant, if any other interest 
than that of their professed religion were endanger- 
ed. But a thing which injures them only in that 
concern, is sure to meet with all possible indulgence. 

With respect to religious parents and preceptors, 
whose children and pupils are to receive that liberal 
education which must inevitably include the study 
of these great works, it will be for them to accom- 
pany the youthful readers throughout, with an effort 
to show them, in the most pointed manner, the in- 
consistency of many of the sentiments, both with 
moral rectitude in general, and with the special 
dictates of Christianity. And in order to give the 
requisite force to these dictates, it will be an impor- 
tant duty to illustrate to them the amiable tendency,, 
and to prove the awful authority, of this dispensation 
of relio-ion. This careful effort will often but very 
partially prevent the mischief; but it seems to be 
all that can be done. 

Virg-irs work is a kind of lunar reflection of the 
ardent effnlerence of Homer ; surrounded, if I may 
extend the figure, with as beautiful a halo of ele- 
gance and tenderness as perhaps the world evei^ 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 249 

saw. So much more refined an order of sentiment 
mitrht have rendered the heroic character far more 
attractive to a mind that can melt as well as burn, if 
there had actually been a hero in the poem. Bu 
none of the per-sonages intended for heroes excite 
the reade^r's enthusiasm enough to assimilate the 
tone of his feelings. No fiction or history of human 
characters and actions will ever powerfully transfuse 
its spirit, without some one or some very few indi- 
viduals of signal peculiarity or greatness, to concen- 
trate and embody the whole energy of the work. 
There would he no danger, therefore, of any one's 
becoming an idolater of the god of war through the 
inspiration of the Mneid, even if a larger proportion 
of it had been devoted to martial enterprise. Per- 
haps the chief counteraction to Christian sentiments 
which I should apprehend to an opening, susceptible 
mind, would bp a depravation of its ideas concerning 
the other world, from the picturesque scenery whicn 
Virgil has opened to his hero in the regions of the 
dead, and the solemn and interesting images with 
which he has shaded the avenue to them. Perhaps, 
also, the affecting sentiments which precede the 
death of Dido might tend to lessen, especially in a 
pensive mind, the horror of that impiety which would 
throw back with violence the possession of life into 
the hands of Him who gave it. 



LETTER VI. 

Ijiiciji.... Influence of the moral Sublimity of his Heroes. ...Plutarch. ...The Histo- 
rians Antichristian Eft'ect of ailmiriiiff the moral Greatness of the eminent 

Heathens.. ..Points of essential Difierence between Excellence according: to Chris- 
tian Principles, and the most elevated Excellence of the Heathens. ...An unqual- 
ified Complacency in the latter produces an alienation of Ati'ection and Admiration 
from the former. 

When I add the name of Lucan, I must confess 
that notwithstanding the offence to taste from a 
22 



250 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

Style too ostentatious and inflated, none of the an- 
cient authors would have so much power to seduce 
my feelings, in respect to moral {ireatness, into a 
temper not coincident with Christianity. His lead- 
ing characters are widely different from those of 
Homer, and of a greatly superior order. The mighty 
genius of Homer appeared and departed in a rude 
age of the human mind, a stranger to the intellectual 
enlargement which would have enabled him to com- 
bine in his heroes the dignity of thought, instead of 
mere physical force, with the energy of passion. 
For want of this, they are great heroes without being 
great men. They appear to you only as tremendous 
fighting and destroying animals; a kind of human 
Mammoths. The rude efforts of personal conflict 
are all they can understand and admire, and in their 
warfare their minds never reach to any of the sub- 
limer results even of war; their chief and final ob- 
ject seems to be the mere savage glory of fighting, 
and the annihilation of their enemies. When the 
heroes of Lucan, both the depraved and the nobler 
class, are employed in war, it seems but a small part 
of what they can do, and what they intend; they 
have always something further and greater in view 
than to evince their valour, or to riot in the ven- 
geance of victory. Even the ambition of Pompey 
and Caesar seems almost to become a grand passion, 
when compared to the contracted as well as detest- 
able aim of Homer's chiefs ; while this passion too 
is confined to narrow and vulgar designs, in compar- 
ison with the views which actuated Cato and Brutus. 
■ — The contempt of death, which in the heroes of 
the Tlind often seems like an incapacity or an obliv- 
ion of thought, is in Lucan's favourite characters the 
result, or at least the associate, of profound reflec- 
tion ; and this strongly contrasts their courage with 
that of Homer's warriors, which is, (according indeed 
to his own frequent similes,) the daring of wild 
beasts. Lucan sublimates martial into moral gran- 
deur. Even if you could deduct from his great men 
all that which forms the specific martial display of 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 251 

the hero, you would find their greatness little dimin- 
ished ; they would be commanding- and interesting" 
men still. The better class of them, amidst war 
itself, hate and deplore the spirit and ferocious ex- 
ploits of war. They are indignant at the vices of 
mankind for compelling their virtue into a career in 
which such sanguinary glories can be acquired. And 
while they deem it their duty to exert their courage in 
a just cause, they regard camps and battles as vulgar 
things, from which their thoughts often turn away 
into a train of solemn contemplations in which they 
appro;ich sometimes the empyreal region of sublim- 
ity. You have a more absolute impression of gran- 
deur from a speech of Cato, than from all the mighty 
exploits that epic poetry ever blazoned. The elo- 
quence of Lucan's moral heroes does not consist in 
images of triumphs and conquests, but in reflections 
on virtue, suffering, destiny, and death ; and the 
sentiments expressed in his own name have often a 
melancholy tinge which renders them irresistibly 
interesting. He might seem to have felt a presage, 
while musing on the last of the Romans, that their 
poet was soon to follow them. The reader becomes 
devoted both to the poet and to these illustrious men ; 
but, under the influence of this attachment, he adopts 
all their sentiments, and exults in the sympathy ; for- 
getting, or unwilling to reflect, whether this state of 
feelino" is concordant with the religion of Christ, and 
with the spirit of the apostles and martyrs. The 
most seducing of Lucan's sentiments, to a mind 
enamoured of pensive sublimity, are those concern- 
ing death. I remember the very principle which I 
would wish to inculcate, that is, the necessity that a 
believer of the sfospel should preserve the Christian 
tenour of fpelmg predominant in his mind, and clear 
of inconsrruoiis mixture, having struck me with great 
force amidst the enthusiasm with which I read many 
times over the memorable account of Vulteius, the 
speech by which he inspired his gallant band with a 
passion for death, and the reflections on death with 
which the poet closes the episode. I said to myself^ 



252 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

with a sensation of conscience, What are these sen- 
timents with which I am burning-? Are these the 
just ide-ris of death ? Are they such as were taujjht 
by the Divine Author of our religion ? Is this the 
spirit with which St Paul approiiched his last hour? 
And I felt a painful collision between this reflection 
and the passion inspired by the poet. I perceived 
with the clearest certainty that the kind of interest 
which I felt was no less than a real adoption, for the 
time, of the very same sentiments by which he was 
animated. 

The epic poetry has been selected for the more 
pointed application of my remarks, from the convic- 
tion that it has had a much greater influence on the 
moral sentiments of succeeding ages than all the' 
other poetry of antiquity, by means of its impressive 
display of individual great characters. And it will 
be admitted that the moral spirit of the epic poets, 
taken together, is as little in opposition to the Chris- 
tian theory of moral sentiments as that of the collec- 
tive poetry of other kinds. The just and elevated 
sentiments to be found in the Greek tragedies, tend 
to lead to the same habits of thought as the best of the 
pagan didactic moralists. And these sentiments in- 
fuse themselves more intimately into our minds when 
thus coming warm in the course of passion and ac- 
tion, and speaking to us with the emphasis imparted 
by affecting- and dreadful events ; but still are not so 
forcibly impressed as by the insulated mag-nificence 
of such striking and sublime individual characters 
as those of epic poetry. The mind of the reader 
does not retain for months and years an animated 
recollection of some personage whose name inces- 
santly recalls the sentiments Avhich he uttered, or 
which his conduct made us feel. Still, however, the 
moral spirit of the Greek tragedies acts with a con- 
siderable force on a susceptible mind ; and if there 
should be but half as gfreat a difference between the 
quality of the instructions which they will insinuate, 
and the principles of evang^elical morality, as there 
was between the religious knowledge and moral 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 



253 



spirit of the men themselves who wrote and con- 
tended for their own fame in Greece, and the divine 
illumination and noble character of those apostles 
that opened a commission from heaven to transform 
the world, the student may have some cause to be 
careful lest his Athenian morality should disincline 
him to the doctrines of a better school. 

I shall not dwell lonj^ on the biography and his- 
tory, since it will be allowed that their influence is 
very nearly coincident with that of the epic poetry. 
Tii3 Avork of Plutarch, the chief of the biographers, 
(a work so necessary, it would seem, to the consola- 
tions of a Christian, that I have read of some author 
who did not profess to disbelieve the New Testa- 
ment, declarinof that if he were to be cast on a desert 
if^Iand, and could have one book, and but one, it 
should be this,) the work of Plutarch delineates a 
greatness partly of the same character as that cele- 
brated by Homer, and partly of the more dignified 
and intellectual kind which is so commanding in the 
great men of Lucan, several of whom, indeed, are 
the subjects also of the biographer. Various dis- 
tinctions might, no doubt, be remarked in the im- 
pression made by great characters as illustrated in 
poetry, and as exposed in the plainness of historical 
record : but T am persuaded that the habits of feel- 
ing v.'hich will grow from admiring the one or the 
other, will be snbstnntially the same as to a cordial 
reception of the religion of Christ. 

A number of the men exhibited by the biographers 
and historians, rose so eminently above the general 
chiracter of the human race, that their names have 
become inseparably associated with our ideas of 
moral greatness. A thoughtful student of antiquity 
enters this maj'^stic company with an impression of 
mvstical awful ness, resembling that of Ezekiel in 
his vision. In this select and revered assembly we 
include only those who were distinguished by ele- 
vated virtue, as well as powerful talents and memo- 
. rable actions. Undoubtedly the magnificent powers 
and energy without moral excellence, so often dis- 



254 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

played on the field of ancient history, compel a kind 
of prostration of the soul in the presence of men, 
whose surpassing achievements seem to silence for 
a while, and but for a while, the sense of justice 
which must execrate their ambition and their crimes ; 
but where greatness of mind seems but secondary 
to greatness of virtue, as in the examples of Phocion, 
Epaminondas, Aristides, Timoleon, Dion, and a con- 
siderable number more, the heart applauds itself for 
feeling an irresistible captivation. This number 
indeed is small, compared with the whole galaxy of 
renowned names ; but it is large enough to fiH the 
mind, and to give as venerable an impression of pa- 
gan greatness, as if none of its examples had been 
the heroes whose fierce brilliance lightens through 
the blackness of their depravity ; or "the legislators, 
orators, and philosophers, whose wisdom was de- 
graded by hypocrisy, venality, or vanity. 

A most impressive part of the influence of ancient 
character on modern feelings, is derived from the 
accounts of two or three of the greatest philosophers, 
whose virtue, protesting and solitary in the times in 
which they lived, whose intense devotedness to the 
pursuit of wisdom, and whose occasional sublime 
glimpses of thought, darting beyond the sphere of 
error in which they were enclosed and benighted, 
present them to the mind with something like the 
venerableness of the prophets of God. Among the 
exhibitions of this kind, it is unnecessary to say that 
Xenophon's Memoir of "Socrates stands unrivalled 
and above comparison. 

Sanguine spirits without number have probably 
been influenced in modern times by the ancient- 
history of mere heroes ; but persons of a reflpctive 
disposition have been incomparably more affected 
by tho contemplation of those men, whose combina- 
tion of mental power with illustrious virtue consti- 
tutes the supreme glory of heathen antiquity. — And 
why do T deem the admiration of this noble display 
of moral excellence pernicious to these reflective 
minds, in relation to the religion of Christ ? For 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 255 

the simplest possible reason ; because the principles 
of that excellence are not identical with the princi- 
ples of this religion ; as I believe every serious and 
self-observant man, who has been attentive to them 
both, will have verified in his own experience. He 
has felt the animation which pervaded his soul, in 
musing on the virtues, the sentiments, and the great 
actions of these dignified men, suddenly expiring, 
when he has attempted to prolong or 'transfer it to 
the virtues, sentiments, and actions of the apostles 
of Jesus Christ. Sometimes he has, with mixed 
Avonder and indignation, remonstrated with his own 
feelings, and has said, I know there is the highest 
excellence in the religion of the Messiah, and in the 
characters of his most magnanimous followers ; and 
surely it is excellence also that attracts me to those 
other illustrious men ; why then cannot I take a full 
delightful interest in them both ? But it is in vain ; he 
finds this amphibious devotion impossible. And he 
will always find it so ; for,antecedently to experience, 
it would be obvious that the order of sentiments 
which was the life and soul of the one form of excel- 
lence, is extremely distinct from that which is the an- 
imating spirit of the other. If the whole system of 
a Christian's sentiments is required to be adjusted to 
the economy of redemption, they must be widely dif- 
ferent from those of the men, however wise or virtu- 
ous who never thought or heard of the Saviour of the 
world ; else where is the peculiarity or importance 
of this new dispensation, which does, however, both 
avow and manifest a most signal peculiarity, and 
with which Heaven has connected the signs and 
declarations of its being of infinite importance ? If, 
again, a Christian's grand object and solicitude is to 
please God, this must constitute his moral excel- 
lence, (even though the /ads were the same,) of a 
very diflferent nature from that of the men who had 
not in firm faith any god that they cared to please, 
and whose highest glory it might possibly become, 
that they boldly diflfered from their deities ; as Lucan 
undoubtedly intended it is as the most emphatical 



256 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

applause of Cato, that he was the inflexible patron 
and hero of the cause which was the aversion of the 
gods.* If humility is required to be a chief charac- 
teristic in a Christian's mind, he is here ag^ain placed 
in a state of contrariety to that love of glory which 
accompanied, and was applauded as a virtue while 
it accompanied, almost all the moral greatness of 
the heathens. If a Christian lives for eternity, and 
advances towards death with the certain expectation 
of judgment, and of a new and awful world, how 
different must be the essential quality of his serious 
sentiments, as partly created, and totally pervaded, 
by this mighty anticipation, from the order of feeling 
of the virtuous heathens, who had no positive or 
sublime expectations beyond death ! The interior 
essences, if I may so speak, of the two kinds of ex- 
cellence, sustained or produced by these two sys- 
tems of thought, are so different, that they will hardly 
be more convertible or compatible in the same mind 
than even excellence and turpitude. — Now it ap- 
pears to me that the enthusiasm, with which a mind 
of deep and thoughtful sensibility dwells on the his- 
tory of sages, virtuous legislators, and the noblest 
class of heroes, of heathen antiquity, will be found 
to beguile that mind into an order of sentiments 
congenial with theirs, and therefore thus seriously 
different from the spirit and principles of Christian- 
ity.f It is not exactly that the judgment admits 
distinct pagan propositions, but the heart insensibly 
acquires an unison with many of the sentiments 

* VIclrix causa Diis placuit, sed victa Catoni. 

t If it should be said that, in admiring paaian excellence, the 
mind takes the mere facts of that excellence, separately from the 
principles, and as far as they are identical with the facts of Chris- 
tian excellence, and then, connecting Christian principles with 
them, converts the whole into a Christian character before it cor- 
dially admires, I appeal to experience while I assert that this is 
not true. If it were, the mind would be able to turn with full 
complacency from an affectionate admirati(m of an illustrious 
heathen, to admire, in the very same train of feeling and with 
still warmer emotion, the excellence of St. Paul; which is not 
the fact. 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 257 

which imply those propositions, and are wrongf, unless 
those propositions are riffht. It forg-ets that a dif- 
ferent state of leeling-, corresponding to a greatly 
different scheme of propositions, is appointed by the 
Sovereign Judge of all things as (with relation to 
us) an indispensable preparation for entering the 
eternal paradise ;* and that now, no moral distinc- 
tions, however splendid, are excellence in his sight, 
if not conformed to this standard. It slides into a 
persuasion that, under any economy, to be exactly 
like one of those heathen examples would be a com- 
petent qualification for any world to which good 
spirits are to be assigned. The devoted admirer 
contemplates them as the most enviable specimens 
of his nature, and almost wishes he could have been 
one of them ; without reflecting that this would h*.ve 
been under the condition probably, among many 
other circumstances, of adoring Jupiter, Bacchus, 
or ^sculapius, and of despising even the deities 
that he adored ; and under the condition of being 
a stranger to the Son of God, and to all that he 
has disclosed and accomplished for the felicity of 
our race. It would even throw an ungracious 
chill on his ardour, if an evangelical monitor should 
whisper, 'Recollect Jesus Christ,' and express his 
regret that these illustrious men could not have 
been privileged to be elevated into Christians. If 
precisely the word ' elevated' were used, the admon- 
ished person might have a feeling, at the instant, as 
if it were not the rischt word. But this state of mind 
is no less than a serious hostility to the gospel, which 
these feelings are practically pronouncing to be at 
least unnecessary ; and therefore that noblest part 
of ancient literature which tends to produce it, is 
inexpressibly injurious. It had been happy for many 
cultivated and aspiring minds, if the men whose 
characters form the moral magnificence of the clas- 
sical history, had been such atrocious villains, that 

* I hope none of tliese observations will be iinflerstoort loinsin- 
iiate ilie impossiliility of the fiiiuie happines^ f)f virtiiniis heathens. 
But a disquisition on Ihe subject would here he out t^f plate. 



258 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

their names could not have been recollected without 
execration. Nothing can be more disastrous than 
to be led astray by eminent virtue and intelligence, 
which can give a sense of grandeur, or of an alliance 
with grandeur, in the deviation. 

It will require a very affecting impression of the 
Christian truth, a very strongly marked idea of the 
Christian character, and a habit of thinking with 
sympathetic admiration of the most elevated class of 
Christians, to preserve entire the evangelical spirit 
among the examples of what might pardonably have 
been deemed the most exalted style of man, if a 
revelation had not been received from heaven. Some 
views of this excellence it were in vain for a Chris- 
tian to forbid himself to admire ; but he must learn 
to admire under a serious restriction, else every 
emotion is a desertion of his cause. He must learn 
to assign these men in thought to another sphere, 
and to regard them as beings under a different 
economy with which our relations are dissolved; as 
marvellf>us specimens of a certain imperfect kind of 
moral greatness, formed on a model foreign to true 
religion, which model is crumbled to dust and given 
to the winds. — At the same time, he may well de- 
plore, while viewing some of those men, that, if so 
much excellence could be formed on such a model, 
the sacred system on which his own character pro- 
fesses to be formed should not have raised him 
almost to heaven. — So much for the effect of tho 
most interesting part of ancient literature. 

In the next letter I shall make some observations, 
in reference to the same object on modern polite 
literature. Many of these must unavoidably be very 
analogous to those already made ; since the greatest 
number of the modern fine writers acquired much 
of the character of their minds from those of the 
ancient world. Probably, indeed, the ancients have 
exerted a much more extensive influence in modern 
times by means of the modern writers to whom they 
have communicated their moyal spirit, than imme- 
diately by their own works. 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 259 



LETTER VII. 

When a Communication, declaring' the true Theory of both Religion and Morals, 
was admitted as comiiiir from Heaven, it was re-isoniible to expect th;it, from th& 
Time of this Revel.ilion"to the End of the World, all by whojii it was so admitted 
would be religiously careful lo maintain, in whatever ihey tausrht on Subjects 
within its Cogidzan'ce, a systematic and puncdlions Coiifornnty lolts Principles.... 
Absurdity, Impiety, and pernicious Kliect, of (dsreg-.irdino- this sovereign Claim 
to Conformity... Tiie greatest Number of our hue Writers have incuired this 
Guilt, and done this Mischief ...They are Auiichristian, in the first Place, by 
Omission ; tiiey exclude from their moral Sentiuienis the modifying Interference 
of the Christian Principles. ...Extended Illustration of this Fact, and of the 
Consequences. 

To a man who had lon^ observed the influences 
which tyrannize over human passions and opinions, 
it would not, perhaps, have appeared strange, that 
when the Grand Renovator came on earth, and dur- 
ing" the succeeding ages, a number of the men whose 
superior talents were to carry on the course of liter- 
ature, and guide the progress of the human mind, 
should reject his religion. These I have placed out 
of the question, as it is not my object to show the 
injuries which Christianity has received from its 
avowed enemies. But it might have been expected, 
that all the intelligent men, from that hour to the 
end of time, who should really admit this religion, 
would perceive the sovereignty and universality of 
its claims, and feel that every thing unconsonant 
with it ought instantly to vanish from the whole 
system of approved sentiments and the whole school 
of literature, and to keep as clearly aloof as the 
Israelites from the boundaries that guarded Mount 
Sinai. It might have been presumed, that all prin- 
ciples which the new dispensation rendered obso- 
lete, or declared or implied to be wrong, should no 
more be regarded as belonging to the system of 
principles to be henceforward received and taught, 
than dead bodies in their graves belong to the race 
of living men. To retain or recall them would. 



200 ' ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

therefore, be as offensive to the judgment, as to 
take up these bodies and place them in the paths of 
men, would be offensive to the senses; and as ab- 
surd as the practice of the ancient Ejryptians, who 
carried their embalmed ancestors to their festivals. 
It mio-ht have been supposed, that wh-atever Chris- 
tianity had actually substituted, abolished, or sup- 
plied, v/ould therefore be practically regarded by 
these believers of it as substituted', abolished, or 
supplied ; and that they would, in all their writings, 
be at least as careful of their fidelity in this ^reat 
article, as a man who adopts the Newtonian philos- 
ophy would be certain to exclude from his scientific 
discourse all ideas that seriously implied the Ptole- 
maic or Tychonic system to be true. Necessarily, 
a number of these literary believers would write on 
subjects so completely foreign to what comes within 
the coo-nizance of Christianity, that a pure neutrali- 
ty, which should avoid all interference with it, would 
be all that could be claimed from them in its behalf; 
though, at the same time, one shoidd feel some de- 
gree of regret, to see a man of enlarged mind ex- 
hausting his ability and his life on these foreign 
subjects, without devoting some short interval to the 
service of that which he believes to be of far sur- 
passing moment.* 

* I conlfl not help feelinff a decree of tliisrejrret in readins; lately 
tlie rriemoirs of the adinirahle and estiiiifihle Pir V\'illiain Joiieis. 
Some oC his researches in Assia have incidentally served, in a very 
innportant manner, the cause of r( lifiion ; hut did he think the 
last possible direct service liad been rendered to Christianity, that 
)iis accomplished mind was left at leisure for hymns to the Hindoo 
frodsl Was not this even a violation of the neijirality, and an 
offence, not only ajiainst the gospel, bnt ajiainst theism itpelf! I 
know what may he said about jjersonificaticn, license of i)oeUy, 
and so on ; bnt should not a worshipper of Goii hold himself un- 
der a solemn oblijration to abjure all tolerance of even poetical 
fifrurcs that can seriously seem, in any way whatever, to vecojjnize 
tlie paean divinities, or abominations, as the prophets of Jehovah 
would have called them 1 What would Elijah have said to such 
an employment of talents in his timel It would have availed 
little to have told him that these divinities were only personifica- 
tions (with their appropriate representative idols) of objects in 
nature, of elements, or of abstractions. He would have sternly 
repjied, And was not Caal, whose prophets I destroyed, the samel 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 261 

But the great number who chose to write on sub- 
jects that come within the relations of the Christian 
system, as on the various views of morals, the dis- 
tinctions and judgments of human character, and 
the theory of happiness, with almost unavoidable 
references sometimes to our connexion with Deity, 
to death, and to a future state, ought to have written 
every page under the recollection, that these sub- 
jects are not left free for careless or arbitrary senti- 
timent, since the time that ' God has spoken to us by 
his Son ;' and that the noblest composition would 
be only so much eloquent impiety, if discordant with 
the dictates of the New Testament. Had this been 
a habitual recollection amidst the studies of the fine 
writers of the Christian world, an ingenuous mind 
miorht have read alternately their works and those 
of the evangelists and apostles, without being con- 
founded by a perception of antipathy between the 
inspirations of genius ^nd the inspirations of heaven. 

I confine my view chiefly to the elegant literature 
of our own coimtry. And it may be presum^^d, in- 
dependently of any actual comparison, that this (the 
liter 'ture of directly vicious and infidel tendency 
being put out of view on both sides,) is much less 
exceptionable thnn tlie belles lettres of the other 
parts of modern Europe ; for this plain reason, that 
the extended prpval^nce of the happy light of the 
Reformation, through almost the whole period that 
has produced our works of genius and taste, must 
necessarily, by presentino- the relitrion of Christ in 
an aspect more true to its genuine dignity, have 
compelled from the intellectual men who could not 
reject its truth, a respect which the same class of 
men in popish countries would be but little inclined 
to feel ; or which would generally be, if they dH 
feel it, but the homage of superstition, which injured 
the sacred cause another way. 

I do not assig-n any class of writers formally the- 
ological to the polite literature of a country, not even 
the distinguished sermon-writers of France ; as it is 
probable that works of direct theology have formed 



5i62 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

but a small part of that school of thinking and taste^ 
in which the generality of cultivated men have ac- 
quired the moral conformation of their minds. That 
school is composed of poets, moral philosophers, his- 
torians, essayists, and you may add the writers of 
fiction. If the great majority of these authors have 
injured, and still injure, their pupils in the most im- 
portant of all their interests, it is a very serious 
consideration, both in respect to the accountableness 
of the authors, and the final effect on their pupils. 
I maintain thai they are guilty of this injury. 

On so wide a field, my dear friend, it would be in 
vain to attempt makinof particular references and 
selections to verify all these remarks. I must appeal 
for their truth to your own acquaintance with our 
popular fine writers. 

In the first place, and as a general observation, 
the alleged injury has been done, to a great extent, 
by Omission, or rather it should be called Exclusion. 
And here I do not refer so much to that unworthy 
care, which seems prevalent through the works of 
our ingenious authors, to avoid formally treating on 
any topics of a precisely evangelical kind, as the 
absence of that Christian tinsre and modification, 
(indicated partly by the occasional expression of 
Christian recollections, and partly by a solicitous, 
though it were a tacit, conformity to every principle 
of the Christian theory,) which should be diffused 
universally through the spntiments that regard man 
as a moral beino-. Consider hoAv small a portion of 
the serious subjpcts of thought can be detached from 
all connexion with the relig-ion of Christ, without 
narrowinsr the scope to which he meant it to extend, 
and repelling its intervention where he intended ft 
t;» intervened The bof>k which unfolds it, has exag- 
gerated its comprfhensivpness, and the first distin- 
guished Christian had a delusive view of it, if it does 
not actually claim to mingle its principles with the 
whole system of moral ideas, so as to impart to them 
a specific charactpr; in the same manner as the 
element of fire, interfused through the various 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 263 

forms and combinations of other elements, produces 
tliroughout them, even when latent, a certain impor- 
tant modification, which they would instantly lose, 
and therefore lose their perfect condition, by its ex- 
clusion. 

And this claim to extensive interference, made, 
as a matter of authority, for the Christian piinc pies, 
appears to be supported by their nature. For they 
are not of a nature which necessarily restricts them 
to a peculiar department, like the principles which 
constitute some of the sciences. VVe should at once 
perceive the absurdity of a man who should be at- 
tempting- to adjust all his ideas on jreneral subjects 
according- to the principles of g^eometry, and who 
should maintain (if any man could do so preposterous 
a thino-,) that g-eometrical laws ought to enter into 
the essence of our reasoning- on politics and morals. 
This I own is takings an illustration in the extreme : 
since geometrical and moral truth are not only very 
different, but of a nature essentially distinct. Let 
any other class of principles foreig-n to moral subjects 
be selected, in order to its being shown how absurd 
is the effect of an attempt to stretch them beyond 
their proper sphere, and force them into some con- 
nexion with ideas with which they have no relation. 
Let it be shown how such principles can in no de- 
gree modify the subject to which they are attempted 
to be applied, nor mingle with the reasons concerning 
it, but refuse to touch it, like magnetism applied to 
brass. I would then show that, on the contrary, the 
Christian principles have something in thfir nature 
which has a relation with soniPthing- in the nature 
of almost all serious subjects. Their bein? extended 
to those subjects, therefore, is not an arbitrary and 
forced application of them ; it is merely permittiHg- 
their cognizance and interfusion in whatever is es- 
sentially of a common nature with them. Tt must be 
evident in a moment that the most general doctrines 
of Christianity, such as those of a future judgment, 
and immortality, if believed to be true, have a direct 
relation with every thing that can be comprehended 



264 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

within the widest range of moral speculation and 
sentiment. It will also be found that the more par- 
ticular doctrines, such as those of the moral depravity 
of our nature, an atonement made by the sacrifice 
of Christ, the interference of a special divine influ- 
ence in renewing" the human mind, and educating it 
for a future state, together with all the inferences, 
conditions, and motives resulting from them, cannot 
be admitted and religiously regarded, without com- 
bining themselves, in numberless instances, with a 
man's ideas on moral subjects. I mean, that it is in 
their very nature thus to interfere and find out a 
relation with these ideas, even if there were no di- 
vine requirement that they should. That writer 
must, therefore, have retired beyond the limits of an 
immense field of important and most interesting- 
speculations, must indeed have retired beyond the 
limits of all the speculation most important to man, 
who can say that nothing in the religion of Christ 
bears, in any manner, on any part of his subject any 
more than if he were a philosopher of Satan. 

And, in thus habitually interfering and combining 
with moral sentiments and speculations, the Chris- 
tian principles will greatly modify them. The evan- 
gelical ideas will stand in connexion with the moral 
ones, not simply as additional ideas in the train of 
thinking, but as ideas which impart or dictate a par- 
ticular character to the rest, A writer whose mind 
is so possessed with the Christian principles that 
they thus continually suggest themselves in connex- 
ion with his serious speculations, will unavoidably 
present a moral subject in a somewhat different 
aspect, even if he make no express references to the 
gospel, from that in which it would be presented by 
another writer, whose habits of thought were clear 
of evangelical recollections. And in every train of 
thinking in which the serious recognition of those 
principles would produce this modification, it ought 
to be produced ; so that the very last idea within 
the compass of speculation which would have a dif- 
ferent cast as a ray of the gospel falls, or does not 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 265 

fall, upon it, should be faithfully exhibited in that 
lioht. The Christian principles cannot be true, 
without determining- what shall be true in the mode 
of representinir all those subjects with which they 
hold a connexion. Obviously, as far as the j^ospel 
can go, and does by its relations with things thus 
claim to (jo, with a modifying power, it cannot be a 
matter of indifference whether it rfo go or not; for 
nothing on which its application would have this 
effect, would be equally right as so modified and as 
not so modified, 'fhat which is made precisely cor- 
rect by this qualified condition, must, therefore,*' 
separ itely from it, be incorrect. -He who has sent 
a revelation to declore the theory of sacred truth, 
and to order the relations of all moral sentiment 
with that truth, cannot give his sanction at once to 
this final constitution, and to that which disowns it. 
He, therefore, disowns that which disowns the reli- 
gion of Christ. And whft he disowns he condemns; 
thus placing all moral sentiments in the same pre- 
dicament, with reorard to thi^ Christian f^conomy, in 
which .Jesus Christ placed his contemporaries, 'He 
thvt is not with me is asfainst me.' — The order of 
ideas thus dissentient from the Christian system, 
presumes the existence, or attempts the creation, of 
somf^ oth^r economy. 

Now, in castin<;- a recollective glance over our 
elecrant liternture. the fir greater part, as far as I 
am acquainted with it, nppears to me to ft II under 
this condemnation. After a compTratively small 
number of mmes and books are excepted, what are 
called the British Classics, with the addition of very 
many v-'orks of great literary merit that have not 
quite attained that rink, present an immense vacancy 
of christianized sputim^nt. The authors do not ex- 
hibit the signs of haviuT '^ver deeply studied Chris- 
tianity, or of retainino- any discriminative and serious 
impression of it. What'^ver has strono-ly occupied 
amm's attention, affp'cted his feplino-^, and filled 
bis mind with ideas, will even unintentionally show 
itself in the train and cast of his discourse : these 
23 



266 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

writers do not in this manner betray that their fac- 
ulties have been occupied and interested by the 
special views unfolded in the evangelic dispensation. 
Of their being solemnly conversant with these views, 
you discover no notices analogous, for instance, to 
Uiose which appear in the writmg or discourse of a 
man, who has lately passed some time amidst the 
wonders of Rome or Egypt, and who shows you, by 
almost unconscious ailuVions and images occurring 
in his language even on other subjects, how pro- 
foundly he has been interested in contemplating 
triumphal arches, temples, pyramids, and tombs. 
Their minds are nftt naturalized, if I may so speak, 
to the imacfes and scenery of the kingdom of Christ, 
or to that kind of light which the gospel throws on 
all objects. They are somewhat like the inhabitants 
of those towns within the vast salt mines of Poland, 
who, beholding every object in their region by the 
light of lamps^and candles only, have in their con- 
versation no expressions describing things in such 
aspects as never appear but under the lights of hea- 
ven. You might observe, the next time that you 
open one of these works, how far you may read, 
without meeting with an idea of such a nature, or so 
expressed, as could not have been, unless Jesus 
Christ had come into the world ;* even though the 
subject be one of those whicli he came to illuminate, 
and to enforce on the mind by new and most cogent 
arguments. And where so little of the light and 
rectifying influence of these communications has 
been admitted into the habits of thought, there will 
be very few cordially reverential and animated re- 
ferences to the great Instmcter himself. These will 
perhaps not oftener occur than a traveller in some 
parts of Africa, or Arabia, comes to a spot of green 
vegetation in the desert. You might have read a 
considerable number of volumes, without becoming 
apprized that there is such a dispensation in exist- 

* Exrept., perhaps, in respect to linmanity and benevolence, on 
which subject his jnstrnctions have improved the sentiments even 
of infidels, in spite of the rejection of their divine authority. 



TO EVANGELICAJL RELIGION. 267 

ence, or that such a sublime Minister of it had ever 
appeared among men. And you might have dili- 
gently read, for several years, and tlirough several 
hundred volumes, without at all discovering its na- 
ture or importance, or that the writers, when alluding 
to it, admitted any peculiar and essential importance 
to belong to it. You would only have conjectured 
it to be a scheme of opinions and discipline which 
had appeared in its day, as many others had appear- 
ed, and left us, as the rest have left us, to follow our 
speculations very much in our own way, taking from 
them, indifferently, any notions that we may approve. 
You would have supposed that these writers had 
heard of one Jesus Christ, as they had heard of one 
Confucius, as a teacher whose instructions are ad- 
mitted to contain many excellent things, and to 
whose system a liberal mind will occasionally advert, 
well pleased to see China, Greece, and Judea, as 
well as England, producing their philosophers, of 
various degrees and modes of illumination, for the 
honour of their respective countries and periods, 
and for the concurrent promotion of human intelli- 
gence. All the infoimation which they would have 
supplied to your understanding, and all the conjec- 
tures to which they would have prompted your in- 
quisitiveness, would have left you, if not instructed 
from other sources, to meet the real religion itself, 
when at length disclosed to you, as a thing of which 
you had but slight recognition, except by its name ; 
as a wonderful novelty. How little you would have 
expected, from their literary and ethical glimpses, to 
find the case to be. that the system, so insignificantly 
and carelessly acknowledged in the course of their 
fine sentiments, is the actual and sole economy by 
the provisions of which their happiness can be se- 
cured, by the laws of which they will be judged, 
which has declared the relations of man with his 
Creator, and specified the exclusive ground of ac- 
ceptance ; which is therefore of infinite consequence 
to you, and to them, and to all their readers, as fixing 
the entire theory of the condition and destinies of 



268 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

man on the final principles to which all theories and 
sentiments are solemnly required to be ' brought 
into obedience.' 

Nov/, if the writers who have thus preserved the 
whole world of interesting- ideas which they have 
unfolded free from any evangelical intermixture, are 
really the chief instructers of persons of taste, and 
form, from early life, their habits of feeling and 
thought, it is easy to see that they must produce a 
st;ite of mind very uncongenial* with the gospel. 
Views habitually presented to the mind, during its 
most susceptible periods, and through the main 
course of its improvements, in every varied light of 
sublimity and beauty, with every f;iscination of that 
taste, ingenuity, and eloquence, which it has learnt 
still more to admire each year as its faculties have 
expanded, will hove become the settled order of its 
ideas. And it will feel the same complacency in 
this intellectual order, that, as inhabitants of the 
material world, we do in the great arrangement of 
nature, in the green, blooming earth, and the mag- 
nificent hemisphere of heaven. 



LETTER VIII. 

Move Spei-ific Forms of their Contrariety to the Principles of Revelation.. ..Their 
Goorf Man is not a Christian. ...Contristed with St. Paul. ...Their Theory of 
U.ippiness essentially tliHerent from the Evangelical.. .Short Statement of hoth.... 
Ill moralizincr on Life, they do not habitually consider, and they prevent their Read- 
ers from consi leri- g, the present Slate as iruroductury lo another. ..Their Consola» 
tions for Distress, Old Age, and De uh, widely diiferent, on the whole, from ihose 
which constitute so much of the Value of the Gospel. ..The Grandeur and Hero- 
ism in Death, which they have represented with irresi.sdble Kloquence, emphat- 
ically and perniciously opposite to ilie Christian Doctrine and examples of 
Suhlimity and Happiness in Death.. ..Examples from Tragedy. 

It will be proper to specify, somewhat more dis- 
tinctly, several of the particulars in which I consider 
the generality of our fine writers as disowning or 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. xfoV 

contradicting the evangelical dispensation, and, 
therefore, beguiling their readers into a complacency 
in an order of sentiments that is unconsonant with it. 

And one thing extremely obvious to remark, is, 
that the good man, the man of virtue, who is of ne- 
cessity constantly presented to view in the volumes 
of these writers, is not a Christian. His character 
could have been formed, though the Christian reve- 
lation had never been opened on the earth, or though 
all the copies of the New Testament had perished 
ages since ; and it might have appeared admirable, 
but not peculiar. It has no such complexion and 
aspect as would have appeared foreign and unac- 
countable in the absence of the Christian truth, and 
have excited wonder what it should bear relation to, 
and on what model, in what school, such a confor- 
mation of principles and feelings could have taken 
its consistence. Let it only be said that this man of 
virtue had conversed whole years with the instruc- 
tions of Socrates, Plato, Cicero, and perhaps Anto- 
ninus, and all would be explained ; nothing would 
lead to ask, 'But if so, with whom has he conversed 
since, to lose so completely the appropriate character 
of his school, under the broad impression of some 
other mightier influence ?' 

The good man of our polite literature never talks 
with affectionate devotion of Christ, as the great 
High Priest of his profession, as the exalted Friend, 
whose injunctions are the laws of his virtues, whose 
work and sacrifice are the basis of his hopes, whose 
doctrines guide and awe his reasonings, and whose 
example is the pattern which he is earnestly aspiring 
to resemble. The last intellectual and moral de- 
signations in the world by which it would occur to 
you to describe him, would be those by which the 
apostles so much exulted to be recognized, a disci- 
ple, and a servant, of Jesus Christ ; nor would he 
(I am supposing this character to become a real per- 
son,) be at all gratified by being so described. Yoii 
do not hear him avowing that he deems the habitual 
remembrance of Christ essential to the nature of 



270 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

that excellence which he is cultivating-. He rather 
seems, with the utmost coolness of choice, adoptin£» 
virtue as according with the dignity of a rational 
agent, than to be in the least degree impelled to it 
by any relations with the Saviour of the world. 

On the supposition of a person realizing this char- 
acter having fallen into the company of St. Paul, 
you can easily imagine the total want of congeniality. 
Though both avowedly devoted to truth, to virtue, 
and perhaps to religion, the difference in the cast of 
their sentiments would have been as great as that 
between the physical constitution and habitudes of 
a native of the country at the equator, and those of 
one from the arctic regions. Would not that law of 
the apostle's feelings by which there was a continual 
intervention of ideas concerning one Object, in all 
subjects, places, and times, have appenred to this 
man of virtue and wisdom, inconceivably mystical ? 
In what manner would he have listened to the em- 
phatical expressions respecting the love of Christ 
constraining us, living not to ourselves, but to him 
that died for us and rose again, counting all things 
but loss for the knowledge of Christ, being ardent 
to win Christ and be found in him, and trusting that 
Christ should be mao-nified in our body, whether, by 
life or by death ? Perhaps St. Paul's energy, and 
the appearance of its being accompanied by a vig- 
orous intellect, might have awed him into silence. 
But amidst that silence, he must, in order to defend 
his self-complacency, have decided that the apostle's 
mind had fallen, notwithstanding its strength, under 
the dominion of an irrational association ; for he 
would have been conscious thnt no such ideas had 
ever kindled his affections, and that no such affec- 
tions had ever animated his actions ; and yet he was 
indubitably a good man, according to a generally 
approved standard, and could, in anotbpr style, be 
as eloquent for gfoodness as St. Paul himself. He 
would therefore have concluded, pither that it was not 
necessary to be a Christian, or that this order of feel- 
ings was not necessary to that character. But if the 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 271 

apostle's sagacity had detected the cause of this re- 
serve, and the nature of his associate's reflections, 
he would most certainly have declared to him with 
great solemnity that both these things were neces- 
sary — or that he had been deceived by inspiration; 
and he would have parted from this self-complacent 
man with admonition and compassion. Now, would 
St. Paul have been wrong? But if he would have 
been right, what becomes of those authors, whose 
works, whether from neglect or design, tend to sat- 
isfy their readers of the perfection of a form of char- 
acter which he would have pronounced essentially 
defective ? 

Again — moral writings are instructions on the 
subject of happiness. Now the doctrine of this sub- 
ject is declared in the evangelical testimony: it had 
been strange indeed if it had not, when the happiness 
of man was expressly the object of the communica- 
tion. And what, according to this communication, 
are the essential requisites to that condition of the 
mind without which no mnn ought to be Called hap- 
py ; without which ignorance or insensibility alone 
can be content, and folly alone can be cheerlul ? A 
simple reader of the Christian scriptures will reply 
that they are — a change of heart, called conversion, 
the assurance of the pardon of sin through Jesus 
Christ, a habit of devotion approaching so near to 
intercourse with the Supreme Object of devotion 
that revelation has called it 'communion with God,' 
a process of improvement called sanctification, a 
confidence in the divine Providence that all things 
shall work together for good, and a conscious prep- 
aration for another life, including a firm hope of 
eternal felicity. And what else can he reply ? What 
else can you reply ? Did the lamp of heaven ever 
ehine more clearly since Omnipotence lighted it, 
than these ideas display themselves through the 
New Testament? Is this then absolutely the true, 
and the only true, account of happiness ? It is not 
that which our accomplished writers in general have 
chosen to sanction. Your recollection will tell you 



272 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

that they have most certainly presumed to avow, or 
to insinuate, a doctrine of happiness which implies 
much of the Christian doctrine to be a needless in- 
truder on our speculations, or an imposition on our 
belief; and I wonder that this serious fact should so 
little have alarmed the Christian students of eleg^ant 
literature. The wide difference between the dic- 
tates of the two authorities is too evident to be over- 
looked ; for the writers in question have vsry rarely, 
amidst an immense assemblage of sentiments con- 
cerning happiness, made any reference to what the 
New Testament so explicitly declares to be its con- 
stituent and vital principles. How many times you 
might read the sim or the moon to its repose, before 
you would find an assertion or a recognition, for 
instance, of a change of the mind being requisite to 
happiness, in any terms commensurate with thp sig- 
nificance which this article seems to bear in all the 
varied propositions and notices of it in the New 
Testament. Some of these ^vriters appear hardly to 
have admitted or to have recollected even the maxim, 
that happiness must essentially consist in somptliing 
so fixed in the mind itself as to be substontially in- 
dependent of worldly condition ; for their most ani- 
mated representations of it are merely descriptions 
of fortunate combinations of external circumstances, 
and of the feelings immediately caused by them, 
which will expire the moment that these combina- 
tions are broken up. The greater number, however, 
have fully admitted so plain a truth, and have given 
their illustrations of the doctrine of happiness ac- 
cordingly. And what appears in these illustr itions 
as the brightest imao^e of happiness ? Tt is, probably, 
that of a man feeling an elevated complacency in his 
own excellence, a proud consciousness of rectitude ; 
possessing extended views, cleared from the mists 
of ignorance, prejudice, and superstition ; unfolding 
the generosity of his nature in the exercise of be- 
neficence ; without feeling, however, any grateful 
incitement from remembrance of the transcendent 
j^enerosity of the Son of Man ; maintaining, in re- 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 273 

spect to the events and bustle of the surrounding 
scene, a dignified indifference, which can let the 
world go its own way, undisturbed by its disordered 
course ; and living in a cool resignation to fate, 
without any strong expressions of a specific hope, 
or even solicitude, with regard to the termination 
of life and to all futurity. Now^ notwithstanding 
a partial coincidence of this description with the 
Christian theory of happiness,'* it is evident that on 
the whole the two modes are so different that the 
same man cannot realize them both. The conse-- 
quence is clear ; the natural effect of incompetent 
and fallacious schemes, prepossessing the mind by 
every grace of genius, will be an aversion to the 
Christian scheme ; which will be seen to place hap- 
piness in elements and relations much less flatter- 
ing to what will be called a noble pride ; to make it 
consist in something of which it were a vain pre- 
sumption for the man to fancy that himself can be 
the sovereign creator. 

It is, again, a prominent characteristic of the Chris- 
tian Revelation, that, having declared this life to be 
but the introduction to another, it systematically 
preserves the recollection of this great truth through 
every representation of every subject; so that the 
reader is not allowed to contemplate any of the in- 
terests of life in a view which detaches them from 
the grand object and conditions of life itself An 
apostle could not address his friends on the most 
common concerns, for the length of a page, without 
the final references. He is like a person whose eye, 
while he is conversing with you about an object, or 
a succession of objects, immediately near, should 
glance every moment toward some great spectacle 
appearing on the distant horizon. He seems to talk 
to his friends in somewhat of that manner of express 

* No one can be so absurd as to represent the notions which 
pervade the works of polite literature as totally, and at all points, 
opposite to the principles of Christianity ; what I am asserting, 
is, that in some important points they are substantially and es- 
sentially different, and that in pthers thpy disown the Christian, 
modification. 

84 



274 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

sion with which you can imagine that Elijah spoke, 
if he remarked to his companion any circumstance 
in the journey from Bethel to Jericho, and from 
Jericho to the Jordan ; a manner betrayincr the sub- 
lime anticipation which was pressing on his thoughts. 
The correct consequii|iice of conversing with our 
Lord and his apostles would be, that the thought 
of immortality should become almost as habitually 
present and familiarized to the mind as the counte- 
nance of a domestic friend ; that it should be the 
grand test of the value of all pursuits, friendships, 
and speculations ; and that it should mingle a cer- 
tain nobleness with every thing which it permitted 
to occupy our time. Now how far will the discipline 
of modern polite literature coincide? 

I should be pleased to hear a student of that litera- 
ture seriously profess that he is often and impres- 
sively reminded of futurity ; and to have it shown 
that ideas relating to this great subject are presented 
in sufficient number, and in a proper manner, to pro- 
duce an effect which should form a respectable pro- 
portion of the ivhole effect produced by these authors 
on susceptible minds. But there is no ground for 
expecting this satisfaction. It is true that the idea 
of immortality is so exceedingly grand, that many 
writers of genius Avho have felt but little genuine 
interest in religion, have been led by their percep- 
tion of what is sublime to introduce an illusion which 
is one of the most powerful means of elevating the 
imagination. And the energy of their language has 
been worthy of the subject. In these instances, how- 
ever, it is not always found that the idea is presented 
exactly in that light which both shows its individual 
grandeur, and indicates the extent of its necessary 
connexion with other ideas : it appears somewhat 
like at majestic ower, which a traveller in some 
countries may find standing in a solitary scene, no 
longer surrounded by that great assemblage of build- 
ings, that ample city, of which it was raised to be the 
centre, the strength, and the ornament. Immortality 
had been had recourse to in one page of an ingen- 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 275 

ious work as a single topic of sublimity, in the same 
manner as a stupendous natural phenomenon, or a 
brilliant achievement, has been described in another. 
The author's object might rather seem to have been 
to supply an occasional gratification to taste, than to 
reduce the mind and all its feelings under the per- 
petual dominion of a grand practical principle. 

ft is true also, that a graver class of fine writers, 
who have expressed considerable respect for religion 
and for Christianity, and who, though not writing 
systematically on morals, have inculcated high moral 
principles, have made references to a future state as 
the hope and sanction of virtue. But these refer- 
ences are made less frequently than the connexion 
between our present conduct and a future life would 
seem to claim. And the manner in which they are 
made sometimes indicates either a deficiency of in- 
terest in the great subject, or a pusillanimous anx- 
iety not to offend those readers who would think it 
too directly religious. It is sometimes adverted to as 
if rather from a conviction, that if there is a future 
state, moral speculation must be defective, even to 
a degree of absurdity, without some allusions to it, 
than from feeling a profound delight in the contem- 
plation of it. When the idea of another life is intro- 
duced to aggravate the force of moral principles, and 
the authority of conscience, it is done at times in a 
manner which appears like a somewhat reludajit ac- 
knowledgment of the deficiency of all inferior sanc- 
tions. The consideration is suggested in a transient 
glimpse, after the writer has eloquently expatiated 
on every circumstance by which the present life can 
supply motives to goodness. In some instances, a 
watchful reader will also perceive what appears too 
much like care to divest the idea, when it must be 
introduced, of all direct references to that sacred 
Person who first completely opened the prospect of 
immortality, or to some of those other doctrines 
which he taught in immediate connexion with this 
great truth. There seems reason to suspect the 
writer of having been pleased that, though it is in- 



276 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

deed to the gospel alone that we owe the assurance 
of immortality, yet it was a subject so much in the 
conjectures and speculation of the heathen sages, 
that he may mention it without therefore so ex- 
pressly recognizing the gospel as in the case of in- 
troducing some truth of which not only the evidence, 
but even the firrt explicit conception, was communi- 
cated by that dispensation. 

Taking this defective kind of acknowledgment of 
a future state, together with that entire oblivion of 
the subject which prevails through an ample portion 
of elegant literature, I think there is no hazard in 
saying, that a reader who is satisfied without any 
other instructions, will learn almost every lesson 
sooner than the necessity of habitually living for 
eternity. Many of these writers seem to take as 
much care to guard against the inroad of ideas from 
this solemn quarter, as the inhabitants of Holland 
do against the irruption of the sea ; and their writ- 
ings do really form a kind of moral dyke against the 
invasion from the other world. They do not instruct 
a man to act, to enjoy, and to suffer, as a being that 
may by to-morrow have finally abandoned this orb: 
every thing is done to beguile the feeling of his be- 
ing a "stranger and a pilgrim on the earth." The 
relation which our nature bears to the circumstances 
of the present state, and which individuals bear to 
one another, is mainly the ground on which their 
considerations of duty proceed and conclude. And 
their schemes of happiness, though formed for be- 
ings at once immortal and departing, include little 
which avowedly relates to that world to which they 
are removing, nor reach beyond the period at which 
they will properly but begin to live. They endeav- 
our to raise the groves of an earthly paradise, to 
shade from sig^ht that vista Avhich opens to the dis- 
tance of eternity. 

Another article in which the anti-Christian tend- 
ency of a great part of our productions of taste and 
genius is apparent, is, the kind of consolation ad- 
ministered to distress, old age, and death. Things 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGIONS 277 

of a mournful kind make so large a portion of the lot 
of humanity, that it is impossible for writers who take 
human life and feelings for their subject, to avoid 
(n6r indeed have they endeavoured to avoid] contem- 
plating man in those conditions in which ne needs 
every benignant aid to save him from despair. And 
here, if any where, we may justly require an abso- 
lute coincidence of all moral instructions with the 
religion of Christ: since consolation is eminently its 
distinction and its design; since a being in distress 
has peculiarly a right not to be trifled with by the 
application of unaclapted expedients; and since in- 
sufficient consolations are but to mock it, and decep- 
tive ones are to betray. It should then be clearly 
ascertained by the moralist, and never forgotten, 
what are the consolations provided by this religion, 
and under what condition they are offered. 

Christianity offers even to the irreligious, who re- 
lent amidst their sufferings, the alleviation springing 
from inestimable promises made to penitence : any 
other system, which should attempt to console them, 
simply as suffering, and without any reference to 
the moral and religions state of their minds, would 
be mischievous, if it were not inefficacious. What 
are the principal sources of consolation to the pious, 
is immediately apparent. The victim of sorrow is 
assured that God exercises his paternal wisdom and 
kindness in afflicting his children ; that this neces- 
sary discipline is to refine and exalt them by making 
them " partakers of his holiness ;" that he mercifully 
regards their weakness and pains, and will not let 
them suffer beyond what they shall be able to bear ; 
that their great Leader has suffered for them more 
than they'can suffer, and compassionately sympa- 
thizes still ; that this short life was not meant so 
much to give them joy, as to prepare them for it; 
and that patient constancy shall receive a resplen- 
dent crown. An aged Christian is soothed by the 
assurance that his Almighty Friend will not despise 
the enfeebled exertions, nor desert the oppressed 
and fainting weakness, of the last stage of his ser- 



278 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

vant's life. When advancing into the shade of death 
itself, he is animated by the faith that the great sacri- 
fice has taken the malignity of death away ; and that 
the divine presence witl attend the dark steps of this 
last and lonely enterprise, and show the dying trav- 
eller and combatant with evil that even this melan- 
choly gloom is the very confine of paradise, the 
immediate access to the region of eternal life. 

Now, in the greater number of the works to which 
I am referring, what are the modes of consolation 
which sensibility, reason, and eloquence, have most 
generally exerted themselves to apply to the mourn- 
ful circumstances of life, and to its close ? You will 
readily recollect such as these : a man is suffering — 
well, it is the common destiny, every one suffers 
sometimes, and some much more than he ; it is well 
it is no worse. If he is unhappy now, he has been 
happy, and he could not expect to be always so. It 
were ridiculous to complain that his nature was con- 
stituted capable of suflfering, or placed in a world 
where it is exposed to the causes of it. If it were 
not capable of pain, it would not of pleasure. Would 
he be willing to lose his being, to escape these ills ? 
Or would he consent, if such a thing were possible, 
to be any person else ? — The sympathy of each kind 
relative and friend will not be wanting. His condi- 
tion may probably change for the better; there is 
hope in every situation ; and meanwhile, it is an op- 
portunity for displaying manly fortitude. A strong 
mind can proudly triumph over the oppression of 
pain, the vexations of disappointment, and the ty- 
ranny of fortune. If the cause of distress is some 
irreparable deprivation, it will be softened by the 
lenient hand of time.* 

The lingering months of an aged man are soothed 

* Can it he necesstiry to notice here ap-nin, th;it every system of 
moral sentiments must inevitaiily cdntKin some principles wiiicii 
tlie j-'ospel dues not disapproved Various particulars in this as- 
seml)la!;e of consolations are compatible, in a snhordinate place, 
with the dictates of CJiristianity. But the eniinieratioTi altogether, 
and exclusively of the siand Christian principles, fnrnis a scheme 
of consolation quite different from that of the religion of Christ. 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 279 

almost, it is pretended, into cheerfulness by the re- 
spectful attention of his neighbours; by the worldly 
prosperity and dutiful regard of the family that he 
has brought up ; by the innocent gaiety and amusing 
frolics of their children ; and by the consideration 
of his fair character in society. If he is a man of 
thought, he has the added advantage of some philo- 
sophical considerations ; the cares and passions of 
his former life are calmed into a wise tranquillity ; 
he thinks he has had a competent share of life ; it is 
as proper and necessary for mankind to have their 
" exits," as their " entrances ;" and his business will 
now be to make a "well-graced" retreat from the 
stage, like a man that has properly acted his part, 
and may retire with applause. 

As to the means of sustaining the spirit in death, 
the general voice of these authors asserts the grand 
and only all-sufficient one to be the recollection of a 
well-spent life. To this chief source of consolation 
you will find various additional suggestions ; as for 
instance, that death is in fact a far less tremendous 
thing than that dire form of it by which imagination 
and superstition are haunted ; that the sufferings of 
death are less than men often endure in the course 
of life ; that it is only like one of those transforma- 
tions with which the world of nature abounds ; and 
that it is easy to conceive, and reasonable to expect, 
a more commodious vehicle and habitation. It would 
seem almost unavoidable to glance a momentary 
thought toward what revelation has signified to us 
of " the house not made with hands," of the " better 
country, that is, the heavenly." But yet the greater 
number of the writers of taste advert to the subject 
with apparent reluctance, except it can be done, on 
the one hand, in the manner of pure philosophical 
conjecture, or on the other, under the form of im- 
ages, bearing some analogy to the visions of clas- 
sical poetry.* 

* I am infinitely far from disliking philosophical speculation, or 
even daring flights of fancy, on this high subject. On the con- 
trary, it appears to me strange that any one should solemnly 



5i80 ON THE AVERSION Or MEN OF TASTE 

The arg'uments for resignation to death are not so 
much drawn from future scenes, as from a considera- 
tion of the evils of the present life, the necessity of 
submitting- to a general and irreversible law, the 
dignity of submitting with that calmness which con- 
scious virtue is entitled to feel, and the improbability 
(as these writers sometimes intimate) that any very- 
formidable evils are to be apprehended after death, 
except by a few of the very worst of the human race. 
Those arguments are in general rather aimed to 
quiet fear than to animate hope. The pleaders of 
them seem more concerned to convey the dying man 
in peace and silence out of the world, than to con- 
duct him to the celestial felicity. Let us but see him 
embarked on his unknown voyage in fair weather, 
and we are not accountable for what he may meet, 
or where he may be carried, when he is gone out of 
sight. They seldom present a lively view of the dis- 
tant happiness, especially in any of those images in 
which the Christian revelation has intimated its na- 
ture. In which of these books, and by which of the 
re«al or fictitious characters whose last hours and 
thoughts they sometimes display, will you find, in 
terms or in spirit, the apostolic sentiments adopted, 
"To depart and be with Christ is far better," " Wil- 
ling rather to be absent from the body, and present 
with the Lord ?" The very existence of that sacred 
testimony which has given the only genuine conso- 
lations in death, and the only just conceptions of the 
realities beyond it, seems to be scarcely recollected ; 
while the ingenious moralists are searching the ex- 
hausted common-places of the stoic philosophy, or 
citing the dubious maxims of a religion moulded ac- 
cording to the corrupt wishes of mankind, or even 
recollecting the lively sayings of the few whose wit 
has expired only in the same moment with life, to 

entertain the belief of a life to come, witlioiit its exciting both the 
intellectual faculty and the imagination to their highest exercise. 
Vl^hat I mean to censure in the mode of referring to another life, 
is, the care to avoid any direct resemblance or recognition of the 
ideas which the New Testament has given to guide, in some 
small, very small degree, our conjectures. 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 281 

fortify the pensive spirit for his last removal. 'Is it 
not because there is not a God in Israel, that ye have 
sent to inquire of Baalzebub the God of Ekron ?' 

Another order of sentiments concerning death, of 
a character too bold to be called consolations, has 
been represented as animating one class of human 
beings. In remarking on Lucan, I noticed that de- 
sire of death which has appeared in -the expressions 
of great minds, sometimes while merely indulging 
solemn reflections when no danger or calamity im- 
mediately threatened, but often in the conscious 
approach towards a fatal catastrophe. Many writers 
of later times have exerted their whole strength, and 
have even excelled themselves, in representing the 
high sentiments in which this desire has displayed 
itself; genius has found its very gold mine in this 
field. If this grandeur of sentiment had awakened 
piety while it exalts the passions, some of the poets 
would have ranked among our greatest benefactors. 
Powerful genius, aiding to inspire a, Christian tri- 
umph in the prospect of death, might be revered as 
a prophet, might be almost loved as a benignant an- 
gel. No man's emotions perhaps have approached 
nearer to enthusiasm than mine, in reading the 
thoughts which are made to be expressed by sages 
and reflective heroes in this prospect. I have al- 
ways felt these passages as the last and mightiest 
of the enchantments of poetry, capable of inspiring 
for a little while a contempt of all ordinary interests, 
of the world which we inhabit, and of life itself. 
While the enthusiast is elated with such an emo- 
tion, nothing may appear so desirable as some noble 
occasion of dying ; such an occasion as that supplied 
by the legal injustice which awarded the hemlock to 
Socrates, or by the destiny which at Philippi involved 
Brutus in the ruin of a great design for the liberty of 
the world.* Poetry has delighted to display person- 

* Poetry will not easily exceed many of the expressions which 
mere history has recorded. I should little admire the capahiiity 
of I'eelinir, or greatly admire the Christian temper, of the man 
wJio could without emotion read^ for instance, the short observa- 



282 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

ages of this high order, in the same fatal predica- 
ment ; and the situation of such men has appeared 
inexpressibly enviable, by means of those sublime 
sentiments by which they illuminated the gloom of 
death. The reader has loved to surround himself in 
imagination with that gloom, for the sake of irradi- 
ating it with that sublimity. All other greatness has 
been for a while eclipsed by the greatness of thought 
displayed by these contemplative and magnanimous 
spirits, though untaught by religion, when advancing 
to meet their fate. But the Christian faith recalls 
the mind from this enchantment to recollect that the 
Christian spirit in dying can be the only right and 
noble one, and to consider whether these examples 
be not exceedingly different. Have not the most en- 
lightened and devout Christians, whether they have 
languished in their chambers, or passed through the 
fire of martyrdom, manifested their elevation of mind 
in another strain of eloquence ? The examples of 
greatness in death, which poetry has exhibited, gen- 
erally want all those sentiments respecting the par- 
don of sin, and a Mediator through whom it is ob- 
tained, and often the explicit idea of meetini^ the 
Judge, with which a Christian contemplates his ap- 
proaching end. Their expressions of intrepidity 
and exultation have no analogy with the language 
of an incomparable saint and hero, " Oh death, where 
is thy sting ? O grave, where is thy victory ? Thanks 
be to God, who giveth us the victory through our 
Lord Jesus Christ." The kind of self-authorized 
confidence of taking possession of some other state 
of being, as monarchs would talk of a distant part of 
their empire which they were going to enter ; the 
proud apostrophes to the immortals, to prepare for 
the great and rival spirit that is coming ; their man- 
ner of consigning to its fate a good but falling cause, 
which will sink when they are gone, there not being 

tioiis of Rriitus to his friend, (in contemplation even of a self- 
iMff/ctPfZ dealii,) on the eve of the battle which extinciiished all 
hope of freedom ; ' We shall either be victorious, or remove be- 
yond the power of those that are so. We shall, deliver our coun- 
try by victory, or ourselves by dea,th,' 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 283 

virtue enough in earth or heaven to support or vindi- 
cate it ; their welcoming death as a kind of glad re- 
venge against a haled world and a despicable race, 
— are not the humility nor the benevolence with 
which a Christian dies. If a Christian will partly 
unite with these high spirits in being weary of a 
world of dust and trifles, in defying the pains of 
death, in panting- for an unbounded liberty, it will 
be at the same time with a m.ost solemn commitment 
of himself to the divine mercy, which they forget, or 
were never instructed, to implore. And as to the 
vision of the other world, you will observe a great 
difference between the language of sublime poetry 
and that of revelation, in respect to the nature of the 
sentiments and triumphs of that world, and still more, 
perhaps, in respect to the associates with whom the 
departing spirit expects soon to mingle. The dying 
magnanimity of poetry anticipates high converse 
with the souls of heroes, and patriots, and perhaps 
philosophers ; a Christian feels himself going, (I 
may accommodate the passage,) to ' an innumerable 
company of angels, to the general assembly and 
church of the first born, to God the Judge of all, to 
the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus 
the Mediator of the nev/ covenant.' 

In defence of those who have thus rendered death 
attractive by other means than the evangelical views, 
it may be said, that many of the personages whom 
their scenes exhibit in the contemplation of death, 
or in the approach to it, were necessarily, from the 
age or country in which they lived or are feigned to 
have lived, unacquainted with Christianity ; and that 
therefore it would have been absurd to represent 
them as animated by Christian sentiments. Cer- 
tainly. But I then ask, on what principle men of 
genius will justify themselves for choosing, with a 
view to the instruction of the heart, as they profess, 
examples, of which they cannot preserve the consis- 
tency, without making them pernicious ? VVhere is 
the conscience of that man, who is most anxious that 
every sentiment expressed by the historical or ficti- 



284 ON THE AVERSrON OF MEN OF TASTE 

tious personag-e, in the fatal season, should be har- 
monious with every principle of the character, — but 
feels not the smallest concern about the consistency 
of selecting- or creating the character itself, with his 
conviction of the absolute authority of the religion 
of Christ ? In glancing^ forward, he knows that his 
favourite is to die, and that he cannot die as a Chris- 
tian ; yet he is to die with the most elevated moral 
dignity. Would it not, therefore, be a dictate of 
conscience to warn his readers, that he hopes to 
display the exit with a commanding sublimity of 
which fhe natural effect will be, to make them no 
more wish to die as Christians ? But hoAv would he 
feel while seriously writing such a warning- ? Might 
it not be said to him, And^are you then "willing'" to 
die otherwise than as a Christian ? If you are, you 
virtually pronounce Christianity to be a fable, and, 
to be consistent, should avow the rejection. If you 
are not, how can you endeavour to seduce your 
readers into an enthusiastic admiration of such a kind 
of death as you wish that you may not die ? How 
can you endeavour to inspire those sentiments, 
which would excite your apprehension and compas- 
sion for the state of your reader's mind, if you heard 
him utter them in his last hours ? Is it necessary to 
the pathos and sublimity of poetry, to introduce char- 
acters which cannotbe justly represented without fal- 
sifying our view of the most serious of all moral sub- 
jects ? If this he necessary, it would be better that 
poetry with all its charms were exploded,than that the 
revelation of God should not attain its end, and fix 
its own ideas of death, clearly and alone, in the minds 
of being-s whose manner of preparing* for it is of in- 
finite consequence. But this is far from being the 
dilemma; since innumerable examples could be 
found, or rationally imagined, of Christian greatness 
in death. Is not then this preference of examples 
inimical to Christianity, and is not the sympathetic 
animation which so easily expresses their appropri- 
ate feelings, and informs them with their utmost 
energy, a w^orse kind of infidelity, as it is far more 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGIO?f. 285 

mischievous, than that of the cold dealer in cavils 
and quibbles against the gospel ? What is the 
Christian belief of that poet worth, who would not, 
on reflection, feel self-reproach for the aflTecting- 
scene, which has, for a while, made each of his read- 
ers rather wish to die with Socrates, or with Cato, 
than with St. John ? What would have been thought 
of the pupil of an apostle, who, after hearing his 
master describe the spirit of a Christian's departure 
from the world, in language which he believed to be 
of conclusive authority, and which asserted or clearly 
implied that this alone was greatness in death, should 
have taken the first occasion to expatiate with en- 
thusiasm on the closing scene of a philosopher, or 
on the exit of a stern hero, that, acknowledging in 
the visible world no object for either confidence or 
fear, departed with the aspect of a being who was 
going to summon his gods to judgment for the mis- 
fortunes of his life ? And how will these careless 
men of genius give their account to the Judge of the 
world, for havingf virtually taught many aspiring 
minds that, notwithstanding his first coming was to 
conquer for man the king of terrors, there needs no 
recollection of him, in order to look toward death 
with noble defiance or sublime desire ? 

Some of their dying personages are so consciously 
uninformed of the realities of the invisible state, that 
the majestic sentiments which they disclose on the 
verge of life, can only throw a slight glimmering on 
unfathomable darkness ; but some anticipate the 
other world, as I have already observed, in very de- 
fined images. I recollect one of them, after some 
just reflections on the vanity and wretchedness of 
life, thus expressing his complacency in view of the 
great deliverer: 

'Death joins us to the great majority; 
'Tis to be born to Platos and to Cajsars ; 
'Tis to be jrreat forever. 
'Tis pleasure, 'tis ambition then, to die.' 

Another, an illustrious female, in a tragedy which I 
lately read, welcomes death with the following sen- 
timents : 



286 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

— 'Oh 'tis wondrous well! 
Ye gods of death that rulfc the Stygian gloom ! 
Ye who have greatly died, 1 come! I come! 
The hand of Rome can never touch me more ; 
Hail! perfect freedom, hail!' 

' My free spirit should ere now have join'd 
That great assembly, those devoted shades, 
Who scorned to live till liberty was lost; 
But, ere their country fell, abhorr'd the light.' 

'Shift not thy colour at the sound of death; 
It is to me perfection, glory, triumph. 
Nay, fondly would I choose it, though persuaded 
It were a long, dark night without a rnorning; 
'I'o hondrige far piefer it, since it is 
Deliverance from a world where Romans rule.' 

— ' Then let us spread 
A bold, exalted wing, and the last voice we hear, 
Be that of wonder and applause.' 

' And is the sacred moment then so near.' 

The moment when yon sun, those heavens, this earth, 

flateful to me, polluted by the Romans, 

And all the busy, slavish rac«i of men. 

Shall sink at once, and straight another state 

Rise on a sudden round '? 

Oh to be there!'* 

You will recollect to have read many that are 
equally improper to engage a Christian's full sym- 
pathy, and therefore improper for a poet, admitting 
Christianity, to have written in order to engage that 
sympathy. It is a pernicious circumstance in pas- 
sages of this strain, that some of the general senti- 
ments of anticipation and high emotion which might 
be expressed by a dying Christian, are combined so 
intimately with other ideas and a predominant state 
of feeling contradictory to Christianity, as to tempt 
the mind by the approbation of the one into a toler- 
ance of the other. 

Sometimes even very bad men are made to display 
such dignity in death, as at once to excite a sympa- 
thy with their false sentiments, and to lessen the 
horror of their crimes. I recollect the interest with 

* This is not, perhaps, one of the best specimens ; it is the last 
that has come under my notice. I am certain of having read 
many, but have not, just now, the means of finding them again. 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 287 

•which I read, many years since, in Dr. Young's Bu- 
siris, the proud, magnanimous speech at the end of 
which the tyrant dies : the following are some of 
the lines : 

' ! tliank these wonrifls, these ragingpains, which promise 
An interview with equals soon elsewhere. 
Great Jove, I come !' 

Even the detestable Zanga, though conscious that 
'to receive him hell blows all her fires,' appears, (if 
1 recollect right,) with a fine elevation in the pros- 
pect of death, by means, partly indeed of the senti- 
ments of returning justice, but chiefly of heroic 
courage. To create an occasion of thus compelling 
us to do homage to the dying magnanimity of wicked 
men, is an insult to the religion which condemns 
such magnanimity as madness. It is no justification 
to say, that such instances have been known, and 
therefore such representations but imitate reality ; 
for if the laws of criticism do not enjoin, in works of 
genius, a careful adaptation of all examples and 
sentiments to the purest moral purpose, as a far 
higher duty than the study of resemblance to the 
actual world, the laws of piety most certainly do. 
Let the men who have so mucli literary conscience 
about this verisimilitude, content themselves with 
the office of mere historians, and then they may re- 
late without guilt, if the relation be simple and un- 
varnished, all the facts and speeches of depraved 
greatness within the memory of the world. Eut 
when they choose the higher office of inventing and 
combining, they are accountable for all the conse- 
quences. They create a new person, and, in sending 
him into society, they can choose whether his exam- 
ple shall tend to improve or to pervert the minds that 
will be compelled to admire him. 

It is an immense transition from such instances as 
those which I have been remarking upon, to Rous- 
seau's celebrated description of the death of his 
Eloisa, which would have been much more properly 
noticea in an earlier page. It is long since I read 



^88 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

that scene, one of the most striking specimens prob- 
ably of original conception and interesting- sentiment 
that ever appeared ; but though the representation 
is so extended as to include every thing which the 
author thought needful to make it perfect, there is 
no explicit reference to the peculiarly evangelical 
causes of complacency in death. Yet the represen- 
tation is so admirable, that the serious reader is 
tempted to suspect even his own mind of fanaticism, 
while he is expressing to his friends the wish that 
they, and that himself, may be animated, in the last 
day of life, by a class of ideas which this eloquent 
writer would have been ashamed to introduce. 



LETTER IX. 

The Estimate of the depraved moral Condition of Human Nature is quite different 
in Revelation and Polite Literature... Consequently, the ReJemption by Jesus 
Christ which appears with such momenious Importance in the one, is, in compur- 
ison, a Trifle in the other.. ..Our fine Writers employ and justify antichristian 
Motives to Action ; especially the Love of FL\me....The Momlily of this Passion 
arg-ued....The earnest Repression of it shown to be a Duty. ...Some of ihe lighter 
Order of our popular Writers have aided the Counteraction of Literature to 
Evangelical Religion by careless or malignant Ridicule of Thiiiirs associated with 
it....Brief Notice "of the several Classes of fine Writers, as lying uncierihe Charge 
of contributing to alienate Men of Taste from the Doctrines and moral Spirit "of 
the New Testament. ...Moral Philosophers,...Historians... Essayists.. ..Addison.... 
Johnson. ...The Poets. ...Exception in favour of Milton, &c.,. .Pope.. ..Antichristian 
duality of his Essay on Man.. ..Novels. ...Melancholy Reflections on the Review 
....Conclusion. 

Does jt not appear to you, my dear friend, that an 
approving reader of the generality of our ingenious 
authors will entertain an opinion of the moral con- 
dition of our species very different from the divine 
declarations '? The Governor of all intelligent crea- 
tures has spoken of this nation or family of them, as 
exceedingly remote from conformity to that standard 
of perfection which alone can ever be his rule of 
judgment. And this is pronounced not only of vi- 
cious individuals, who are readily given up to con- 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 289 

demnation by those who form the most partial or the 
proudest estimate of human nature, but of the con- 
stitutional quality of that nature itself. The moral 
part of the constitution of man is represented as 
placing him immensely below that rank of dignity 
and happiness to which, by his intellectual powers, 
and his privilege of being immortal, he would other- 
wise have seemed adapted to belong. The descrip- 
tions of the human condition are such as if the nature 
had, by a dreadful convulsion, been separated off at 
each side from a pure and happy system of the crea- 
tion, and had fallen down an immeasurable depth, 
into depravation and misery. In this state man is 
represented as loving, and, therefore, practically 
choosing, the evils which subject him to the con- 
demnation of God ; and it is affirmed that no expe- 
dient, but that very extraordinary one which Chris- 
tianity has revealed, can change this condition, and 
avert tiiis condemnation with its formidable conse- 
quences. 

Every attempt to explain the wisdom and the 
precise ultimate intention of the Supreme Being in 
constituting a nature subject in so fatal a degree to 
moral evil, will fail. But even if a new revelation 
were given to turn this dark inquiry into noon-day, 
it would make no difference in the actual state of 
things. An extension of knowledge could not re- 
verse the fact, that the human nature has displayed 
through every age the most aggravated proofs of 
being in a deplorable and hateful condition, what- 
ever were the reasons for giving a moral agent a 
constitution which it was foreseen would soon be 
found in this condition. Perhaps, if there were a 
mind expanded to a comprehension so far beyond 
all other created intelligences, that it could see at 
once the whole order of the universe, and look into 
distant ages, it might understand in what manner 
the melancholy fact could operate to the perfection 
of the vast system ; and according to what principles, 
and in reference to what ends, all that has taken 
place within the empire of the Eternal Monarch' is 
25 



290 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

right. But in this contemplation of the whole, it 
would also take account of the separate condition of 
each part ; it would perceive that this human world, 
whatever are its relations to the universe, has its 
own distinct economy of interests, and stands in its 
own relation and accountableness to the righteous 
Governor; and that, regarded in this exclusive view, 
it is an awful spectacle. Now, to this exclusive 
sphere of our own condition and interests revelation 
confines our attention ; and pours contempt, though 
not more than experience pours, on all attempts to 
reason on those grand, unknown principles, accord- 
ing to which the Almighty disposes the universe ; 
all our estimates, therefore, of the state and relations 
of man must take the subject on this insulated 
ground. Considering man in this view, the sacred 
oracles have represented him as a more melancholy 
object than Nineveh or Babylon in ruins ; and an 
infinite aggregate of obvious facts confirms the doc- 
trine. This doctrine, then, is absolute authority in 
our speculations on human nature. But to this au- 
thority the writers in question seem to pay, and to 
teach their readers to pay, but little respect. And 
unless those readers are pre-occupied by the grave 
convictions of religious truth, rendered still more 
grave by painful reflection on themselves, and by 
observation on mankind ; or unless they are capable 
of enjoying a malicious or misanthropic pleasure, 
like Mandeville and Swift, in detecting and exposing 
the degradation of our nature, it is not wonderful 
that they should be prompt to entertain the senti- 
ments \vhich insinuate a much more flattering esti- 
mate. Our elegant and amusing moralists no doubt 
copiously describe and censure the follies and vices 
of mankind ; but many of these, they maintain, are 
accidental to the human character, rather than a 
disclosure of intrinsic qualities. Others do indeed 
spring radically from the nature ; but they are only 
the wild Aveeds of a virtuous soil. Man is still a very 
dignified and noble being, with strong dispositions 
to all excellence, holding a proud eminence in the 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 291 

ranks of existence, and, (if such a Being is adverted 
to,) high in the favour of his Creator. The measure 
of virtue in the world vastly exceeds that of deprav- 
ity ; we should not indulge a fanatical rigour in our 
judgments of mankind ; nor be always reverting to 
an ideal perfection ; nor accustom ourselves to con- 
template the Almighty always in the dark majesty 
of justice. — None of their speculations seem to ac- 
knowledge the gloomy fact which the New Testa- 
ment so often asserts or implies, that all men are 
'by nature children of wrath.' 

It is quite of course that among sentiments of this 
order, the idea of the redemption by Jesus Christ, 
(if any allusion to it should occur,) can appear with 
but an equivocal meaning, and with none of that 
transcendent importance with which his own reve- 
lation has displayed it. While man is not considered 
as lost, the mind cannot do justice to the expedient, 
or to ' the only name under heaven,' by which he 
can be redeemed. Accordingly the gift of Jesus 
Christ does not appear to be habitually recollected 
as the most illustrious instance of the beneficence 
of God that has ever come to human knowledge, 
and as the single fact which, more than all others, 
has relieved the awfulness of the mystery in which 
our world is enveloped. No thankful joy seems to 
beam forth at the thought of so mighty an interposi- 
tion, and of him who was the agent of it. When it 
is difficult to avoid making some allusion to him, he 
is acknowledged rather in any of his subordinate 
characters, than as absolutely a Redeemer ; or if 
the term Redeemer, or, our Saviour, is introduced, 
it is with an awkward formality Avhich betrays that 
its meaning is but little relished, or but little under- 
stood. Jesus Christ is regarded rather as having 
added to our moral advantajres, than as having con- 
ferred that without which all the rest were in vain ; 
rather as having made the passage to a happy fu- 
turity somewhat more commodious, than as having 
formed the passage itself over what was else an 
impassable gulf. Thus that comprehensive sum of 



292 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

blessings, called in the New Testament Salvation, 
or Redemption, is shrunk into a comparatively in- 
considerable favour, which a less glorious messenger 
might have brought, which a less magnificent lan- 
guage than that dictated by inspiration might have 
described, and which a less costly sacrifice might 
have secured. 

It is consistent with this delusive idea of human 
nature, and these faint impressions of the gospel, 
that these writers commonly represent eternal felici- 
ty as the pure reward of merit. I believe you will 
find this, as far as any allusions are made to the 
subject, the prevailing opinion through the school 
of polite literature. You will perceive it to be the 
real opinion of many writers who do sometimes ad- 
vert, in some phrase employed by way of respectful 
ceremony to our national creed, to the work or sac- 
rifice of Christ. 

I might remark on the antichristian motives to 
action which are more than tolerated among these 
authors : I will only notice one, the love of glory ; 
that is, the desire of being distinguished, admired, 
and praised. 

No one will deny that to wish for the favourable 
opinion of the human beings around us, is, to a cer- 
tain extent, and under certain conditions, consistent 
with the Christian laws. In the first place, a mate- 
rial portion of human happiness depends on the at- 
tachment of relatives and friends, and it is right for 
a man to wish for the happiness resulting from such 
attachment. But the degree in which he will obtain 
attachment, will depend very much on the higher 
or the lower estimate which these persons entertain 
of iiis qualities and abilities. In order, therefore, 
to possess a great degree of their affection, it is right 
for him to wish, while he endeavours to deserve, 
that their estimate might be high. 

In the next place, it is almost too plain to need an 
observation, that if it were possible for a man to de- 
sire tiie respect and admiration of mankind purely 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 293 

as a mean of giving a greater efficacy to his eflfbrts 
for their welfare, and for the promotion of the cause 
of heaven, while he would be equally gratified that 
any other man, in whose hands this mean would 
have exactly the same effect, should obtain the ad- 
miration instead of himself, this would be something 
more than innocent ; it would indicate a most noble 
state of mind. But where is the example ? 

In the third place, as the Creator has fixed this 
desire in the essential constitution of our nature, he 
intended its gratification, in some restricted degree, 
to be a direct and immediate cause of pleasure. 
The good opinion of mankind, expressed in praise, 
pleases us by the same necessary and inexplicable 
laws according to which mutual aff^ection pleases us, 
or according to which we are gratified by music, or 
the beauties and gales of spring. To a certain ex- 
tent, therefore, it is innocent to admit the gratification 
of this desire, simply for the sake of this pleasure. 

But to what extent ? It is very apparent that this 
desire has, if I may so express it, an immense vo- 
racity. It has within itself no natural principle of 
limitation, since it is incapable of being gratified to 
satiety. The applause of a continent has not satis- 
fied some men, nor would that of the whole globe. 
To what extent, I repeat, may the desire be indulg- 
ed ? Evidently not beyond that point where it be- 
gins to introduce its accessories, disdainful compar- 
ison, or envy, or competition, or ungenerous wishes. 
But I appeal to each man who has deeply reflected 
on himself, or observed those around him, whether 
this desire, under even a considerably limited degree 
of indulgence, does not introduce these accessories ; 
and whether, in order to exclude them from his own 
mind, he has not often felt it necessary to adopt a 
severity of restriction approaching near an endeavour 
to suppress the very desire itself In wishing to 
prohibit an excess of its indulgence, he has perceived 
that even a very small degree has amounted, or most 
powerfully tended, to that excess — with the excep- 
tion, perhaps, of that modification of the desire which 



294 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

has had reference to engaging the affection of rela- 
tions or a few friends. The measure, therefore, of 
this desire, which may be permitted consistently 
with perfect innocence, will be found to be exceed- 
ingly small. 

Again, the desire cannot be cherished without 
becoming a motive of action exactly in the degree 
in which it is cherished. Now if the supreme, though 
not only motive of action in a pious mind, must be 
the wish to please God, it is evident that the passion 
which supplies another motive, ought not to be al- 
lowed in a degree that will empower this motive 
involved in it to contest, in the njind, the supremacy 
of the pious motive. But here I again appeal to 
the reflective man of conscience, whether he has 
not felt that a very small degree of iiidulgence of 
the desire of human applause is enough, not only to 
render the motive involved in it strong enough to 
maintain a rivalry with what should be the supreme 
motive, but absolutely to prevail over it. In each 
pursuit or performance in which he has excelled, or 
endeavoured to excel, has he not felt with grief and 
indignation that his thoughts much more promptly 
turned to the consideration of human praise, than of 
divine approbation ? And when he has been able 
in some measure to repress this passion, has he not 
found that a very slight stimulus was competent to 
restore its impious ascendency ? — Now what is the 
inference from these observations ? What can it be 
but absolutely this, that though the desire of human 
applause is in some certain small degree innocent, 
yet that since it so mightily tends to an excess de- 
structive of the very essence of piety, it ought, (ex- 
cepting in the cases where human estimation is 
sought purely as a means toward some valuable 
end,) to be opposed and repressed in a manner not 
MUCH LESS general and unconditional than if it were 
purely evil ; and that all those things and books 
which tend, on the contrary, to animate it with new 
force, are most pernicious ? And such an inference 
is concordant with the spirit of the New Testament, 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION, 295 

which, though not requiring the absolute extinction 
of the desire of human applause, yet alludes to most 
of its operations with censure, exhibits probably no 
approved instance of its indulgence, and abounds 
with the most emphatically cogent representations, 
both of its pernicious influence when it predominates 
in the mind, and of its powerful tendency to acquire 
this predominance. Insomuch that a serious reader 
of this book feels that the degree to which the most 
indulgent Christian casuistry can tolerate this desire, 
is a degree lohich it will he certain to reach and to 
exceed in his mind^ in spite of the most systematical 
opposition. He will perceive that the question is 
not so much how far he may encourage it, as by 
what means he may repress it; and that in the effort 
to repress it, there is no possibility of going to an 
excess. The most resolute and persevering exer- 
tion will still leave so much of this passion as Chris- 
tianity will pronounce a fault or a vice. He will be 
anxious to assemble, in aid of the discipline by which 
he endeavours to repress the feeling, all the argu- 
ments of reason, all striking examples, and all the 
interdictions of the Bible. 

Now I think I cannot be mistaken in asserting, 
that much the greater number of our fine writers 
have done the direct contrary of what I have thus 
represented a devout reader of the New Testament 
as feeling necessary to be done. Which of their 
advocates will venture to deny, that they really have 
encouraged the love of applause, of fame, ot glory, 
or whatever else it may be called, in a degree which, 
if the preceding argument is just, places them in the 
most pointed hostility with the Christian religion ? 
— Their good sense has, indeed, often, without ad- 
verting to the religious considerations, admitted the 
conviction, and compelled the acknowledgment, of 
the inanity of this glory. Almost all our ingenious 
writers have, in one place or another, expressed a 
contempt of the ' fool to fame.' They perceived the 
truth, but as the truth did not make them free, they 
were willing after all to dignify a passion to which 



296 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN Or TASTE 

they felt themselves irretrievable slaves. And they 
have laboured to do it by celebrating, with every 
splendid epithet, the men who were impelled by this 
passion through the career in which they Avere the 
idols of mankind and their own ; by describing glory 
as the best incentive to noble actions, and their 
worthiest reward : by placing the temple of virtue 
(proud station of the goddess) in the situation to be 
a mere introduction to that of Fame ; by lamenting 
that so few, and their unfortunate selves not of the 
number, can ^ climb the steep where that proud tem- 
ple shines afar:' and by intimating a charge of 
meanness of spirit against those, who have no gen- 
erous ardour to distinguish themselves from the 
crowd by deeds calculated and designed to command 
admiration. If sometimes the ungracious recollec- 
tion strikes them, and seems likely to strike their 
readers, that this admiration is infinitely capricious 
and perverse, since men have gained it without 
claims, and lost it without demerit, and since all 
kinds of fools have offered the incense to all kinds 
of villains, they escape from the disgust and from 
the benefit of this recollection by saying, that it is 
honourable fame that noble spirits seek; for they 
despise the ignorant multitude, and seek applause 
by none but worthy actions, and from none but wor- 
thy judges. Almost every one of these writers 
sometimes mentions the approbation of the Supreme 
Being, as that to which wise and good men will be- 
yond all things aspire ; but such an occasional ac- 
knowledgment feebly counteracts the effect of many 
glowing sentiments and descriptions of a contrary 
tendency. I must read once more, and vi^ith a habit 
of mind adapted to receive impressions in a very 
different manner, the assemblage of our elegant 
classics, before I can be convinced that the above 
representation is unjust ; and if it is correct, there 
can be no question whether they have instructed 
their readers to tolerate, and even to cherish, anti- 
christian motives of action. 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 297 

I will only remark on one particular more, namely, 
that the lighter order of these writers, and some 
even of the graver, have increased the unaccepta- 
bleness of Christian doctrines to men of taste, by 
their manner of ridiculing the cant and extravagance 
by which hypocrisy, enthusiasm, or the peculiarities 
of a sect or a period, may have disgraced them. 
Sometimes, indeed, they have selected and bur- 
lesqued modes of expression which were not cant, 
and which ignorance and impiety alone would have 
dared to ridicule. And often, in exposing to con- 
tempt the follies of language or manners, by which 
a Christian of good taste deplores that the profession 
of the gospel should ever have been deformed, they 
take not the smallest care to preserve a clear separ- 
ation between what taste and sense have a right to 
explode, and what piety commands to reverence. 
By this criminal carelessness, (unless, indeed, it 
were design,) they have fixed disagreeable and ir- 
reverent associations on the evangelical truth itself, 
for which many persons, afterwards become more 
seriously convinced of that truth, have had cause to 
wish those pages or volumes had gone into the fire, 
instead of coming into their hands. Many others, 
who have not become thus seriously affected, retain 
the impression and cherish the disgust. Gay writers 
ought to know that this is dangerous ground. 

I am sorry that this extended censure on works of 
genius and taste could not be prosecuted with a 
more marked application, and with more discriminate 
references than the continual repetition of the ex- 
pressions, 'elegant literature,' and 'these writers.' 
It might be a service of some value to the evangeli- 
cal cause, if a work were written containing a faith- 
ful and serious estimate, individually, of the most 
popular writers of the last century and a half, in 
respect to the important subject of these comments ; 
with formal citations from some of their works, and 
a candid statement of the general tendency of others. 
In an essay like this it is impossible to make aa 

2a 



1^98 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

enumeration of names, or pass a judgment, except 
in a very slight, occasional manner, on any particular 
author. Even the several classes of authors, which 
I mentioned some time back, as coming under the 
accusation, shall detain you but a short time. 

The Moral Philosophers for the most part seem 
anxious to avoid every thing that might subject them 
to the appellation of Christian Divines. They re- 
gard their department as a science complete in 
itself; and they investigate the foundation of mo- 
rality, define its laws, and affix its sanctions, in a 
manner generally so distinct from Christianity, that 
the reader would almost conclude that religion to 
be another science complete in itself* An entii-e 
separation, indeed, it is hardly possible to preserve ; 
since Christianity has decided some moral questions 
on which reason was dubious or silent ; and since 
that final retribution which the New Testament has 
so luminously foreshown, is evidently the greatest 
of sanctions. To make no reference, while incul- 
cating moral principles, to a judgment to come, after 
it has been declared, on what has been confessed to 
be divine authority, would look like systematic irre- 
ligion. But still it is striking to observe how small 
a portion of the ideas, which distinguish the New 
Testament from other books, many moral philoso- 
phers have thought indispensable to a theory in 
which they professed to include the sum of the duty 
and interests of man. A serious reader is constrain- 
ed to feel that either there is too much in that book, 
or too little in theirs. He will perceive that, in the 
inspired book, the moral principles are intimately 
interwoven with all those doctrines which could not 
have been known without that revelation. He will 
find, also, in this superior book, a vast number of 

* When it happens, sometimes, that a moral topic hardly can be 
disposed of without some recognition of its involving, or being 
intimately connected with, a theological doctrine, it is curious to 
notice with what an air of indifference, somewhat partaking of 
contempt, one of these writers will observe, that that view of the 
matter is the business of the divines, with whose department, he 
does not pretend to interfere. 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 299 

ideas avowedly designed to interest the affections in 
favour of all moral principles and virtues. These 
ideas are taken from a consideration of the divine 
mercy, the compassion of the Redeemer, and other 
topics to which moral philosophers have very rarely 
alluded. And thoug-h the same definition would 
apply to any given virtue as illustrated in the inspir- 
ed and in the philosophical page, yet the manner in 
which it bears on the conscience and the heart is 
materially different. — The difference becomes mo- 
mentous, if it should be found that the sacred au- 
thority pronounces the virtues of a good man not to 
be the cause of his acceptance with God, and that 
the philosophic moralists disclaim any other. On 
the whole, it must be concluded that there cannot 
but be something very defective in that theory of 
morality which makes so slight an acknowledgment 
of the religion of Christ, and takes so little of its pe- 
culiar character. The philosophers place the reli- 
gion in the relation of a diminutive satellite to the 
world of moral and eternal interests ; useful, as 
throwing a few rays on that side of it on which the 
solar light of human wisdom could not directly shine ; 
but that it can impart a vital warmth, or that it claims 
the ascendant power and honours, some of them 
seem not to have a suspicion. 

Without doubt, innumerable reasonings and con- 
clusions may be advanced on moral sul)jects which 
shall be true on a foundation of their own, equally 
in the presence of the evangelical system and in its 
absence. Without any reference to that system, or 
if it had never been appointed or revealed, it had 
been easy to illustrate the utility of virtue, the ele- 
vation which it confers on a rational being, its con- 
formity with the orders of the universe, and many 
other views of the subject. It would also have been 
easy to pass from virtue in the abstract into an 
illustration and enforcement of the several distinct 
virtues as arranged in a practical system. And if it 
should be asked, Why may not some writers employ 
their speculations on those parts and views of moral 



300 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

truth which are independent of the gospel, leaving 
it to other men to christianize the whole by the ad- 
dition of the evangelical relations, motives, and con- 
ditions ? — I readily answer, That this may sometimes 
very properly be done. An author may render val- 
uable service by explaining, for instance, the utility 
of virtue in general, or of any particular virtue, or 
by a clear illustration of any other circumstance of 
the moral system. In doing this, he would expressly 
take a marked ground, and aim at a specific object. 
He would not let it be imagined for a moment that 
this particular view of the subject of morals involved 
all the relations of that subject with the interests of 
man, and with God. It would be fully understood 
that a multitude of other considerations were indis- 
pensable to a complete moral theory. But the 
charge against the moral philosophers is meant to 
be applied to those who have professed to consider 
morals under a comprehensive view, including all 
the relations in which they are connected with duty 
and happiness ; and who, in this comprehensive 
view, seem quite to have forgotten the implication 
of moral with evangelical truth, since they neither 
include the evangelical ideas in their speculations, 
nor appear sensifile of a defect. 

When I mention our Historians, it will instantly 
occur to you, that the very foremost names in this 
department imply every thing that is deadly to the 
Christian religion itself, as a divine communication, 
and therefore^lie under a condemnation of a different 
kind. But as to the generality of those who have 
not been regarded as enemies to the Christian cause, 
have they not forgotten what was due from its 
friends ? The historian intends his work to have 
the effect of a series of moral estimates of the per- 
sons whose actions he records : now, if he believes 
that a Judge of the world will come at length, and 
pronounce on the very characters that his work ad- 
judges, it is one of the simplest dictates of good 
sense, that all the awards of the historian should be 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 301 

ftiithfully coincident with the judg-ments which may 
be expected from that supreme authority on the last 
day. Those distinctions of character, which the 
historian applauds as virtues, or censures as vices, 
should be exactly the same qualities, which the lan- 
guage already heard from that Judge certifies us 
that he will applaud or condemn. It is worse than 
foolish to erect a literary court of morals and humai^ 
character, of which the maxims, the language, the 
decisions, and the judges, will be equally the objects 
of contempt before Him whose intelligence will in- 
stantly distinguish and place in light the right and 
the wrong of all time. What a wretched abasement 
will overwhelm on that day some of the pompous 
historians, who were called by others, and deemed 
by themselves, the high, authoritative censors of an 
age, and whose verdict was to fix on each name 
immortal honour or infamy, if they shall find many 
of the questions and the decisions of that tribunal 
proceed on principles which they would have been 
ashamed to apply, or never took the trouble to un- 
derstand. How they will be confounded, if some of 
the men whom they had extolled, are consigned to 
ignominy, and some that they had despised, are ap- 
plauded by the voice at which the world will tremble 
and be silent. But such a sad humiliation will, I 
think, be apprehended for many of the historians, by 
every serious Christian reader who shall take the 
hint of this subject along with him through their 
works. He will not seldom feel that the writers 
seem uninformed, while they remark and decide on 
actions and characters, that a final Lawgiver has 
come from heaven, or that he will come, or on what 
account he will come, yet once more. Their very 
diction often abjures the plain Christian denomina- 
tions of good and evil ; nor do I need to enumerate 
the specious and fallacious terms which they have 
employed in their place. How, then, can a mind 
which learns to think in their manner, learn, at the 
same time, to think in his from whose opinion it will, 
however, be found no light matter to have dissented, 



302 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

when they shall be declared for the last time in this 
world ? 

The various interesting- sets of short Essays, es- 
pecially the Spectator and Rambler, must have had, 
during a season at least, a very considerable influ- 
ence on the moral taste of the public ; and probably 
they have a considerable influence still. The very 
ample scope of tlie Spectator gave a fair opportunity 
for a serious writer to introduce, excepting pure sci- 
ence, a little of every subject connected with the 
condition and happiness of men. How did it happen 
that the stupendous circumstance of the redemption 
by the Messiah, of which the importance is com- 
mensurate with the whole interests of man, with the 
value of his immortal spirit, with the government of 
his Creator in this world, and Avith the happiness of 
eternity, should not have been a few times, in the 
long course of that work, fully and solemnly exhibit- 
ed ? Why should not a few of the most peculiar of 
the doctrines comprehended in the subject have 
been clothed with the fascinating elegance of Ad- 
dison, from whose pen many persons would have 
received an occasional evangelical lesson with in- 
comparably more candour than from any professed 
Divine ? A pious and benevolent man, such as the 
avowed advocate of Christianity ought to be, should 
not have been contented that so many thousands of 
minds as his writings were adapted to instruct and 
to charm should have been left, for any thing that 
he very explicitly attempted to the contrary in his 
most popular works, to end a life which he had con- 
tributed to refine, acquainted but slightly with th« 
grand security of happiness after death. Or, if it 
was not his duty to introduce in a formal manner 
any of the most specifically evangelical subjects, it 
might at least have been expected, that some of the 
many serious essays contained in the Spectator 
should have had more of a Christian ting-e, more 
references to the sentiments of the gospel, intermin- 
gled with the speculations concerning the Deity, 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 303 

and the gravest moral subjects. There might easily 
have been more assimilation of what may, as it now 
stands, be called a literary religion, to the spirit of 
the INew Testament. From him also, as a kind of 
dictator among the majority of the elegant writers 
of the age, it might have been expected that he 
would have set himself, Avith the same decision and 
noble indignation which his Cato had shown against 
the betrayers of Roman liberty and laws, to denounce 
that ridicule which has wounded religion by a care- 
less or by a crafty manner of holding up its abuses 
to scorn : but of this the Spectator itself is not free 
from examples. 

Addison wrote a book expressly in defence of the 
religion of Christ; but to be the dignified advocate 
of a cause, and to be its humble disciple, may be 
very different thino-s. An advocate has a feeling 
of making himself important — he seems to confer 
something on the cause ; but as a disciple, he must 
feel littleness, humility, and submission. Self-admi- 
ration might find more to gratify it in becoming the 
patron of a beggar, than the servant of the greatest 
potentate. Addison was, moreover, very unfortu- 
nate, for any thing like justice to the gospel, in the 
class of persons with whom he associated, and whom 
he was anxious to please. One can imagine with 
what a perfect storm of ridicule he Avould have been 

freeted, on entering one of his celebrated coffee- 
ouses of wits, on the day after he should have pub- 
lished in the Spectator, a paper, for instance, on the 
necessity of being devoted to the service of Jesus 
Christ. The friendship of the world ought to be a 
'pearl of great price,' for its cost is very serious. 

The powerful and lofty mind of Johnson was much 
more capable of scorning the ridicule, and defying 
the opposition, of wits and worldlings. And yet it 
is too probable that his social life was eminently 
unfavourable to a deep and simple consideration of 
Christian sentiment ; and that the very ascendency 
by which he intimidated and silenced impiety, con- 
tributed to the injury. He associated with men of 



304 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

whom many were very learned, some were extreme- 
ly able, but of whom comparatively few made any 
decided profession of piety ; and, perhaps, a consid- 
erable number were such as would in other society 
have shown a strong propensity to irreligion. This, 
however, seldom dared to appear undisguisedly in 
Johnson's presence ; and it is impossible not to re- 
vere the strength and noble severity that made it so 
cautious. But this repression of irreligion had the 
effect of rendering many men acceptable associates, 
with whom his judgment, his conscience, and all his 
moral feelings, would have forbidden much friendly 
intercourse, if those men had habitually assumed the 
freedom of fully disclosing themselves. Decorum 
in respect to religion being preserved, he could take a 
most lively interest in the company of men who drew 
forth the utmost force and stores of his mind, in con- 
versations on literature, moral philosophy, and gen- 
eral intelligence, and who could enrich every suSject 
of social argument by their learning, their genius, or 
their knowledge of mankind. But if there was at 
the same time a repressed impiety latent in their 
minds, it was impossible that it should not infuse 
into the sentiments which they communicated, a 
certain quality uncongenial with Christianity, though 
every thing avowedly opposed to it were in his com- 
pany avoided. Now, through the complacency which 
he felt in such intellectual intercourse, this quality 
would, in some degree, steal into his own ideas and 
feeling. For it is not in the power of the strongest 
and most vigilant mind, amidst the animated inter- 
change of eloquence, to avoid some degree of assim- 
ilation to even the least approved sentiments of men 
whose intellectual wealth or energy gives so much 
pleasure, and commands so much respect. Thus 
the very predominance by which he could repress 
the direct irreligion of statesmen, scholars, wits, and 
accomplished men of the world, might, by retaining 
him their intimate or frequent associate, subject him 
to meet the influence of that irreligion actmg in a 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 305 

manner too indirect and refined to excite his hostility 
or his caution. 

But, indeed, if his caution was excited, there might 
still be a possibility of self-deception in the case. 
He vi'ould feel it, and justly feel it, so great an 
achievement to constrain such men as I have de- 
scribed, to adopt, at least by acquiescence, when 
with him, a better style of moral sentiment, cleared 
of all obvious irrehgion, that he might be too much 
disposed to be satisfied himself with such an order 
of sentiments. It would be difficult for him to admit 
that what was actually a victory over impiety, could 
be itself less than Christianity. It is hard for a man 
to suspect himself deficient in that very thing in 
which he not only excels other men, but mends them. 
Nothing can well be more unfortunate for Christian 
attainments, than to be habitually in society where 
a man will feel as if he displayed a saintly eminence 
of character by obtaining a decent silence or partial 
assent on subjects, on which it has been the delight 
of wise and devout men to expatiate. 

If there be any truth in the representations which 
compose so large a part of this essay, Johnson's 
continual immersion, if I may so express it, in the 
studies of polite literature, must have subjected him 
to no small measure of an influence, which it requires 
a more intimate and habitual familiarity with the 
Christian principles than perhaps we are warranted 
to believe he maintained, to prevent being injurious 
to a man's views and feelings concerning religion. 

It must, however, be admitted that this illustrious 
author, who, though here mentioned only in the class 
of essayists, is to be ranked among the greatest of 
moral philosophers, is less at variance with the prin- 
ciples which appear to be displayed in the New 
Testament, than almost any other distinguished 
■writer of either of these classes. But few of his 
speculations, comparatively, tend to beguile the 
reader and admirer into that spirit which, on turning 
to the instructions of Jesus Christ and his apostles, 
would feel estrangement or disgust; and he has 
27 



3136 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

more explicit and solemn references to the grand 
purpose of human life, to a future judgment, and to 
eternity, than almost any other of our elegant mor- 
alists has had the piety or the courage to make. 
There is so much that most powerfully coincides 
and co-operates with Christian truth, that the disciple 
of Christianity the more regrets to meet occasionally 
a sentiment, respecting perhaps the review of life, 
the consolations in death, the effect of repentance, 
or the terms of acceptance with God, which he can- 
not reconcile with the evangelical theory, nor with 
those principles of Christian faith in which Johnson 
avowed his belief. In such a writer he cannot but 
deem such deviations a matter of grave culpability. 
Omission is his other capital fault. Though he 
did introduce in his serious speculations, as I have 
observed, more distinct allusions to religious ideas 
than most other moralists, yet he did not introduce 
them so often as may be claimed from a writer who 
frequently carries seriousness to the utmost pitch of 
solemnity. There scarcely ever was an author, not 
formally theological, in whose works a large propor- 
tion of explicit Christian sentiment was more requi- 
site for a consistent entireness of character, than in 
the moral writings of Johnson. No writer ever more 
completely exposed and blasted the folly and vanity 
of the greatest number of human pursuits. The 
visage of Medusa could not have darted a more 
fatal glance against the tribe of gay triflers, the 
competitors of ambition, the proud possessors of 
wealth, or the men who consume their life in useless 
speculations. His severe and just condemnation 
strikes indeed at almost all classes, and all the most 
favourite employments of mankind. But it was so 
much the more peculiarly his duty to insist, still 
more fully than he did, on that one model of charac- 
ter, that one grand employment of life, which is en- 
joined by Heaven, and which will stand the test of 
the most rigid moral speculation, and of the final 
account. No author has more impressively display- 
ed the misery of human life : he laid himself under 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 307 

SO much the stronger obligation to unfold most ex- 
plicitly the only effectual consolations, the true 
scheme of felicity as far as it is attainable on earth, 
and the delightful prospect of that better region 
which has so often inspired exultation in the most 
melancholy situations. No writer has better illus- 
trated the rapidity of time, and the shortness of life; 
he ought so much the more fully to have dwelt on 
the views of that eternity at which his readers are 
reminded that they will so quickly arrive. No writer 
will easily make more poignant reflections on the 
pains of guilt: was it not indispensable that he 
should oftener have directed the mind suffering this 
deepest distress to that great Sacrifice once offered 
for sin ? No writer represents with more accurate 
and mortifying truth the failure of human resolutions, 
and the feebleness of human efforts, in the contest 
against corrupt inclination, depraved habit, and temp- 
tation : why did not this melancholy contemplation 
and experience prompt a very frequent recollection, 
and a most emphatical expression of the importance, 
of that divine assistance, without which the Bible 
has fully warned us that our labours will fail ? 

In applying the censure to the Poets, it is very 
gratifying to^meet with so much to applaud in the 
most elevated of all their tribe. Milton's genius 
might harmoniously have mingled with the angels 
that announced the Messiah to'be come, or that on 
the spot and at the moment of his departure predicted 
his coming again ; might have shamed to silence 
the muses of paganism ; or softened the pains of a 
Christian martyr. Part of the poetical works of 
Young, those of Cowper, Watts, and a few others, 
have animated a very great number of minds with 
sentiments, which they did not feel it necessary to 
repress or extinguish in order to listen with com- 
placency to the language of Christ and his apostles. 
But as to the great majority of the poets, it would 
be most curious to try what kind of religious system, 
and what view of the economy of man, would b^ 



308 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

formed by the assemblage of all the sentiments be- 
long-ing or alluding to the subject throughout their 
Avorks ; if such an experiment were worth the trou- 
ble, and there were any person sufficiently in the 
state of the ingenuous Huron to perform it justly. 
But it would be exceedingly amusing to observe the 
process and the fantastic result ; it would, in the next 
place, be very sad to consider, that these fallacies 
have been insinuated by the charms of poetry into 
countless thousands of minds, with a beguilement 
that has, first, diverted them from a serious attention 
to the gospel, then formed them to a habitual dislike 
of it, and finally operated to betray some of them to 
the doom which, beyond the grave, awaits the neg- 
lect of Jesus Christ. 

You have probably seen Pope cited as a Christian 
poet, by some pious authors, whose anxiety to im- 
press reluctant genius into an appearance of favour- 
ing Christianity, has credulously seized on any oc- 
casional verse, which seemed an echo of the sacred 
doctrines. No reader can admire, more than I, the 
discriminate thought, the finished execution, and the 
galaxy of poetical felicities, by which Pope's writings 
are distinguished. But I cannot refuse to perceive, 
that almost every allusion in his lighter works to the 
names, the facts, and the topics, that peculiarly be- 
long to the religion of Christ, is in a style and spirit 
of profane banter ; and that, in most of his graver 
ones, where he meant to be dignified, he took the 
utmost care to divest his thoughts of all the mean 
vulgarity of Christian associations. 'Off", ye pro- 
fane !' might seem to have been his address to all 
evangelical ideas, when he began his Essay on Man ; 
and they were obedient, and fled ; for if you detach 
the detail and illustrations, so as to lay bare the out- 
line and general principles of the work, it will stand 
confest an elaborate attempt to redeem the whole 
theory of the condition and interests of men, both in 
life and death, from all the explanations imposed on 
it by an unphilosphical revelation from heaven. And 
in the happy riddance of this despised though celes- 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 309 

tial lig'ht, it exhibits a sort of moon-light vision, of 
thin, impalpable abstractions, at which a speculatjst 
may gaze, with a dubious wonder whether they are 
realities or phantoms ; but which a practical man 
will in vain try to seize and turn to account, and 
which an evangelical man will disdain to accept in 
substitution for those applicable and affecting forms 
of truth with which his religion has made him con- 
versant. But what deference to Christianity was to 
be expected, when such a man as Bolingbroke was 
the genius whose imparted splendour was to illumi- 
nate, and the demigod* whose approbation was to 
crown, the labours which were to conjoin these two 
venerable names, according to the wish of the poet, 
in everlasting fame ? 

If it be said for some parts of these dim specula- 
tions, that though Christianity comes forward as the 
practical dispensation of truth, yet there must be, 
in remote abstraction behind it, some grand, ultimate, 
elementary truths, of which this dispensation does 
not inform us, or which it reduces from their pure 
recondite into a more palpable and popular form ; I 
answer, And what did the poet, or ' the master of 
the poet and the song,' know about these truths, and 
how did they come by their information ? 

A serious observer must acknowledge with regret, 
that such a class of productions as novels, in which 
folly tries to please in a greater number of shapes 
than the poet enumerates in the Paradise of Fools, 
is capable of producing a very considerable effect 
on the moral taste of the community. A large pro- 
portion of them, however, consist too much of pure 
folly to have any more specific counteraction to 
Christian principles than that of mere folly in gen- 
eral ; excepting', indeed, that the most flimsy of 
them will occasionally contribute their mite of mis- 
chief, by alluding to a Christian profession in a 
manner that identifies it with the cant by which 
hypocrites have aped it, or the extravagance with 

* He is 30 named somewhere in Pope's works. 



310 ON THE AVERSION OF MEN OF TASTE 

which fanatics have distorted it. But a great and 
direct force of counteracting' influence proceeds from 
those which eloquently display characters of eminent 
vigour and virtue, when that virtue is founded on no 
basis consolidated by religion ; but on a mixture of 
refined pride with generous feeling, or expressly on 
those philosophical principles which are too often 
accompanied, in these works, by an avowed or 
strongly intimated contempt of every idea of any 
religion, especially the Christian. If the case is 
mended in those into which an awkward religion 
has found its way, it is rather because the characters 
excite less interest, than because that which they 
do excite is favourable to religion. No reader is 
likely to be impressed with the dignity of being a 
Christian by seeing, in one of these works, an at- 
tempt to combine that character with the fine gen- 
tleman by means of a most ludicrous apparatus of 
amusements and sacraments, churches and theatres, 
morning-prayers and evening-balls. Nor will it 
perhaps be of any great service to the Christian 
cause, that some others of them profess to exemplify 
and defend, against the cavils and scorn of infidels, 
a religion of which it does not appear that the writers 
would have discovered the merits, had it not been 
established by law. One may doubt whether any 
one will be more than amused by the venerable 
priest, who is introduced probably among wicked 
lords and giddy girls, to maintain the sanctity of 
terms, and attempt the illustration of doctrines, which 
these well-meaning writers do not perceive that th© 
worthy gentleman's college, diocesan, and library, 
have but very imperfectly enabled him to understand. 
If the reader even wished to be more than amused, 
it is easy to imagine how much he would be likely 
to be instructed and affected, by such an illustration 
or defence of the Christian religion, as the Avriter of 
a fashionable novel would deem a graceful expedient 
for filling up his plot. 

One cannot close such a review of our fine writers 
without melancholy reflections. That cause which 



TO EVANGELICAL RELIGION. 311 

will raise all its zealous friends to a sublime emi- 
nence on the last and mostsolemn day the world has to 
behold, and will make them great forever, presented 
its claims full in sight of each of these authors in his 
time. The very lowest of those claims could not 
be less than a conscientious solicitude to beware of 
every thing that could in any point injure the sacred 
cause. This claim has been slighted by so many as 
have lent attraction to an order of moral sentiments 
greatly discordant with its principles. And so many 
are gone into eternity under the charge of having 
employed their genius, as the magicians their en- 
chantments against Moses, to counteract the Saviour 
of the world^ 

Under what restrictions, then, ought the study of 
polite literature to be conducted ? t cannot but have 
foreseen that this question must return at the end oi 
these observations ; and I can only answer as 1 have 
answered before. Polite literature will necessarily 
continue to be the grand school of intellectual and 
moral cultivation. ^The evils, therefore, which it 
may contain, will as certainly affect in some degree 
the minds of the successive students, as the hurtful 
influence of the climate, or of the seasons, will affect 
their bodies. To be thus affected, is a part of the 
destiny under which they are born, in a civilized 
country. It is indispensable to acquire the advan- 
tage ; it is inevitable to incur the evil. The means 
of counteraction will amount, it is to be feared, to 
no more than palliatives. Nor can these be proposed 
in any specific method. All that I can do, is, to 
urge on the reader of taste the very serious duty 
of continually recalling his mind, and if he is a pa- 
rent or preceptor, of cogently representing to his 
pupils, the real character of the religion of the New 
Testament, and the reasons which command an in- 
violable adherence to it. 



THE END, 



i 
















^^ ^ k Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
t? V^ ^^ Treatment Date: April 2009 

^ ^^^"ht. **^ PreservationTechnologies 



" •To » .0* 



%. 






A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION 

111 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 







<*i.. 




.^°^ 












**dR/?^^'' o ^^ 



HECKMAN 

BINDERY INC. |§ 

JAN 89 

N. MANCHESTER, 
INDIANA 46962 




1% "V .4?^ .'l^^kc^ 



